This is a long piece and a must read. We can discuss the merits and demerits at length.

J. V. Stalin

The hub of modern social life is the class struggle. In the course of this struggle each class is guided by its own ideology. The bourgeoisie has its own ideology — so-called liberalism. The proletariat also has its own ideology —this, as is well known, is socialism.

Liberalism must not be regarded as something whole and indivisible: it is subdivided into different trends, corresponding to the different strata of the bourgeoisie.

Nor is socialism whole and indivisible: in it there are also different trends.

We shall not here examine liberalism — that task had better be left for another time. We want to acquaint the reader only with socialism and its trends. We think that he will find this more interesting.

Socialism is divided into three main trends : reformism, anarchism and Marxism.

Reformism (Bernstein and others), which regards socialism as a remote goal and nothing more, reformism, which actually repudiates the socialist revolution and aims at establishing socialism by peaceful means, reformism, which advocates not class struggle but class collaboration — this reformism is decaying day by day, is day by day losing all semblance of socialism and, in our opinion, it is totally unnecessary to examine it in these articles when defining socialism.

It is altogether different with Marxism and anarchism: both are at the present time recognised as socialist trends, they are waging a fierce struggle against each other, both are trying to present themselves to the proletariat as genuinely socialist doctrines, and, of course, a study and comparison of the two will be far more interesting for the reader.

We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!" We think that such cheap "criticism" is undignified and useless.

Nor are we the kind of people who console themselves with the thought that the Anarchists "have no masses behind them and, therefore, are not so dangerous." It is not who has a larger or smaller "mass" following today, but the essence of the doctrine that matters. If the "doctrine" of the Anarchists expresses the truth, then it goes without saying that it will certainly hew a path for itself and will rally the masses around itself. If, however, it is unsound and built up on a false foundation, it will not last long and will remain suspended in mid-air. But the unsoundness of anarchism must be proved.

Some people believe that Marxism and anarchism are based on the same principles and that the disagreements between them concern only tactics, so that, in the opinion of these people, it is quite impossible to draw a contrast between these two trends.

This is a great mistake.

We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the "doctrine" of the Anarchists from beginning to end and weigh it up thoroughly from all aspects.

The point is that Marxism and anarchism are built up on entirely different principles, in spite of the fact that both come into the arena of the struggle under the flag of socialism. The cornerstone of anarchism is the individual, whose emancipation, according to its tenets, is the principal condition for the emancipation of the masses, the collective body. According to the tenets of anarchism, the emancipation of the masses is impossible until the individual is emancipated. Accordingly, its slogan is: "Everything for the individual." The cornerstone of Marxism, however, is the masses, whose emancipation, according to its tenets, is the principal condition for the emancipation of the individual. That is to say, according to the tenets of Marxism, the emancipation of the individual is impossible until the masses are emancipated. Accordingly, its slogan is: "Everything for the masses."

Clearly, we have here two principles, one negating the other, and not merely disagreements on tactics.

The object of our articles is to place these two opposite principles side by side, to compare Marxism with anarchism, and thereby throw light on their respective virtues and defects. At this point we think it necessary to acquaint the reader with the plan of these articles.

We shall begin with a description of Marxism, deal, in passing, with the Anarchists' views on Marxism, and then proceed to criticise anarchism itself. Namely: we shall expound the dialectical method, the Anarchists' views on this method, and our criticism; the materialist theory, the Anarchists' views and our criticism (here, too, we shall discuss the socialist revolution, the socialist dictatorship, the minimum programme, and tactics generally); the philosophy of the Anarchists and our criticism; the socialism of the Anarchists and our criticism; anarchist tactics and organisation — and, in conclusion, we shall give our deductions.

We shall try to prove that, as advocates of small community socialism, the Anarchists are not genuine Socialists.

We shall also try to prove that, in so far as they repudiate the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Anarchists are also not genuine revolutionaries. . . .

And so, let us proceed with our subject.

I
The Dialectical Method

Everything in the world is in motion. . . . Life changes, productive forces grow, old relations collapse.
— Karl Marx

Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx's proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism.

Hence, to expound Marxism means to expound also dialectical materialism.

Why is this system called dialectical materialism?

Because its method is dialectical, and its theory is materialistic.

What is the dialectical method?

It is said that social life is in continual motion and development. And that is true: life must not be regarded as something immutable and static; it never remains at one level, it is in eternal motion, in an eternal process of destruction and creation. Therefore, life always contains the new and the old, the growing and the dying, the revolutionary and the counter-revolutionary.

The dialectical method tells us that we must regard life as it actually is. We have seen that life is in continual motion; consequently, we must regard life in its motion and ask: Where is life going? We have seen that life presents a picture of constant destruction and creation; consequently, we must examine life in its process of destruction and creation and ask: What is being destroyed and what is being created in life?

That which in life is born and grows day by day is invincible, its progress cannot be checked. That is to say, if, for example, in life the proletariat as a class is born and grows day by day, no matter how weak and small in numbers it may be today, in the long run it must triumph. Why? Because it is growing, gaining strength and marching forward. On the other hand, that which in life is growing old and advancing to its grave must inevitably suffer defeat, even if today it represents a titanic force. That is to say, if, for example, the bourgeoisie is gradually losing ground and is slipping farther and farther back every day, then, no matter how strong and numerous it may be today, it must, in the long run, suffer defeat. Why? Because as a class it is decaying, growing feeble, growing old, and becoming a burden to life.

Hence arose the well-known dialectical proposition: all that which really exists, i.e., all that which grows day by day is rational, and all that which decays day by day is irrational and, consequently, cannot avoid defeat.

For example. In the eighties of the last century a great controversy flared up among the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia. The Narodniks asserted that the main force that could undertake the task of "emancipating Russia" was the petty bourgeoisie, rural and urban. Why? — the Marxists asked them. Because, answered the Narodniks, the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie now constitute the majority and, moreover, they are poor, they live in poverty.

To this the Marxists replied: It is true that the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie now constitute the majority and are really poor, but is that the point? The petty bourgeoisie has long constituted the majority, but up to now it has displayed no initiative in the struggle for "freedom" without the assistance of the proletariat. Why? Because the petty bourgeoisie as a class is not growing; on the contrary, it is disintegrating day by day and breaking up into bourgeois and proletarians. On the other hand, nor is poverty of decisive importance here, of course: "tramps" are poorer than the petty bourgeoisie, but nobody will say that they can undertake the task of "emancipating Russia."

As you see, the point is not which class today constitutes the majority, or which class is poorer, but which class is gaining strength and which is decaying.

And as the proletariat is the only class which is steadily growing and gaining strength, which is pushing social life forward and rallying all the revolutionary elements around itself, our duty is to regard it as the main force in the present-day movement, join its ranks and make its progressive strivings our strivings.

That is how the Marxists answered.

Obviously the Marxists looked at life dialectically, whereas the Narodniks argued metaphysically — they pictured social life as having become static at a particular stage.

That is how the dialectical method looks upon the development of life.

But there is movement and movement. There was movement in social life during the "December days," when the proletariat, straightening its back, stormed arms depots and launched an attack upon reaction. But the movement of preceding years, when the proletariat, under the conditions of "peaceful" development, limited itself to individual strikes and the formation of small trade unions, must also be called social movement.

Clearly, movement assumes different forms.

And so the dialectical method says that movement has two forms: the evolutionary and the revolutionary form.

Movement is evolutionary when the progressive elements spontaneously continue their daily activities and introduce minor, quantitative changes into the old order.

Movement is revolutionary when the same elements combine, become imbued with a single idea and sweep down upon the enemy camp with the object of uprooting the old order and of introducing qualitative changes in life, of establishing a new order.

Evolution prepares for revolution and creates the ground for it; revolution consummates the process of evolution and facilitates its further activity.

Similar processes take place in nature. The history of science shows that the dialectical method is a truly scientific method: from astronomy to sociology, in every field we find confirmation of the idea that nothing is eternal in the universe, everything changes, everything develops. Consequently, everything in nature must be regarded from the point of view of movement, development. And this means that the spirit of dialectics permeates the whole of present-day science.

As regards the forms of movement, as regards the fact that according to dialectics, minor, quantitative changes sooner or later lead to major, qualitative changes — this law applies with equal force to the history of nature Mendeleyev's "periodic system of elements" clearly shows how very important in the history of nature is the emergence of qualitative changes out of quantitative changes. The same thing is shown in biology by the theory of neo-Lamarckism, to which neo-Darwinism is yielding place.

We shall say nothing about other facts, on which F. Engels has thrown sufficiently full light in his Anti-Duhring.

Such is the content of the dialectical method.

* * *

How do the Anarchists look upon the dialectical method?

Everybody knows that Hegel was the father of the dialectical method. Marx purged and improved this method. The Anarchists are aware of this, of course. They know that Hegel was a conservative, and so, taking advantage of this, they vehemently revile Hegel as a supporter of "restoration," they try with the utmost zeal to "prove" that "Hegel is a philosopher of restoration . . . that he eulogizes bureaucratic constitutionalism in its absolute form, that the general idea of his philosophy of history is subordinate to and serves the philosophical trend of the period of restoration," and so on and so forth (see Nobati, 2 No. 6. Article by V. Cherkezishvili.)

The well-known Anarchist Kropotkin tries to "prove" the same thing in his works (see, for example, his Science and Anarchism, in Russian).

Our Kropotkinites, from Cherkezishvili right down to Sh. G., all with one voice echo Kropotkin (see Nobati).

True, nobody contests what they say on this point; on the contrary, everybody agrees that Hegel was not a revolutionary. Marx and Engels themselves proved before anybody else did, in their Critique of Critical Criticism, that Hegel's views on history fundamentally contradict the idea of the sovereignty of the people. But in spite of this, the Anarchists go on trying to "prove," and deem it necessary to go on day in and day out trying to "prove," that Hegel was a supporter of "restoration." Why do they do this? Probably, in order by all this to discredit Hegel and make their readers feel that the "reactionary" Hegel's method also cannot be other than "repugnant" and unscientific.

The Anarchists think that they can refute the dialectical method in this way.

We affirm that in this way they can prove nothing but their own ignorance. Pascal and Leibnitz were not revolutionaries, but the mathematical method they discovered is recognised today as a scientific method. Mayer and Helmholtz were not revolutionaries, but their discoveries in the field of physics became the basis of science. Nor were Lamarck and Darwin revolutionaries, but their evolutionary method put biological science on its feet. . . . Why, then, should the fact not be admitted that, in spite of his conservatism, Hegel succeeded in working out a scientific method which is called the dialectical method?

No, in this way the Anarchists will prove nothing but their own ignorance.

To proceed. In the opinion of the Anarchists, "dialectics is metaphysics," and as they "want to free science from metaphysics, philosophy from theology," they repudiate the dialectical method (see Nobati, Nos. 3 and 9. Sh. G. See also Kropotkin's Science and Anarchism).

Oh, those Anarchists! As the saying goes: "Blame others for your own sins." Dialectics matured in the struggle against metaphysics and gained fame in this struggle; but according to the Anarchists, dialectics is metaphysics!

Dialectics tells us that nothing in the world is eternal, everything in the world is transient and mutable; nature changes, society changes, habits and customs change, conceptions of justice change, truth itself changes — that is why dialectics regards everything critically; that is why it denies the existence of a once-and-for-all established truth. Consequently, it also repudiates abstract "dogmatic propositions, which, once discovered, had merely to be learned by heart" (see F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach). 3

Metaphysics, however, tells us something altogether different. From its standpoint the world is something eternal and immutable (see F. Engels, Anti-Duhring), it has been once and for all determined by someone or something — that is why the metaphysicians always have "eternal justice" or "immutable truth" on their lips.

Proudhon, the "father" of the Anarchists, said that there existed in the world an immutable justice determined once and for all, which must be made the basis of future society. That is why Proudhon has been called a metaphysician. Marx fought Proudhon with the aid of the dialectical method and proved that since everything in the world changes, "justice" must also change, and that, consequently, "immutable justice" is metaphysical nonsense (see K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy). The Georgian disciples of the metaphysician Proudhon, however, keep reiterating that "Marx's dialectics is metaphysics"!

Metaphysics recognises various nebulous dogmas, such as, for example, the "unknowable," the "thing-in-itself," and, in the long run, passes into empty theology. In contrast to Proudhon and Spencer, Engels combated these dogmas with the aid of the dialectical method (see Ludwig Feuerbach); but the Anarchists — the disciples of Proudhon and Spencer — tell us that Proudhon and Spencer were scientists, whereas Marx and Engels were metaphysicians!

One of two things: either the Anarchists are deceiving themselves, or else they do not know what they are talking about.

At all events, it is beyond doubt that the Anarchists confuse Hegel's metaphysical system with his dialectical method.

Needless to say, Hegel's philosophical system, which rests on the immutable idea, is from beginning to end metaphysical. But it is also clear that Hegel's dialectical method, which repudiates all immutable ideas, is from beginning to end scientific and revolutionary.

That is why Karl Marx, who subjected Hegel's metaphysical system to devastating criticism, at the same time praised his dialectical method, which, as Marx said, "lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary" (see Capital, Vol. I. Preface).

That is why Engels sees a big difference between Hegel's method and his system. "Whoever placed the chief emphasis on the Hegelian system could be fairly conservative in both spheres; whoever regarded the dialectical method as the main thing could belong to the most extreme opposition, both in politics and religion" (see Ludwig Feuerbach).

The Anarchists fail to see this difference and thoughtlessly maintain that "dialectics is metaphysics."

To proceed. The Anarchists say that the dialectical method is "subtle word-weaving," "the method of sophistry," "logical somersaults" (see Nobati, No. 8. Sh. G.), "with the aid of which both truth and falsehood are proved with equal facility" (see Nobati, No. 4. Article by V. Cherkezishvili).

Thus, in the opinion of the Anarchists, the dialectical method proves both truth and falsehood.

At first sight it would seem that the accusation advanced by the Anarchists has some foundation. Listen, for example, to what Engels says about the follower of the metaphysical method :

". . . His communication is: 'Yea, yea; nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.' For him a thing either exists, or it does not exist; it is equally impossible for a thing to be itself and at the same time something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another . . ." (see Anti-Duhring. Introduction).

How is that? — the Anarchists cry heatedly. Is it possible for a thing to be good and bad at the same time?! That is "sophistry," "juggling with words," it shows that "you want to prove truth and falsehood with equal facility"! . . .

Let us, however, go into the substance of the matter.

Today we are demanding a democratic republic. Can we say that a democratic republic is good in all respects, or bad in all respects? No we cannot! Why? Because a democratic republic is good only in one respect: when it destroys the feudal system; but it is bad in another respect: when it strengthens the bourgeois system. Hence we say: in so far as the democratic republic destroys the feudal system it is good — and we fight for it; but in so far as it strengthens the bourgeois system it is bad — and we fight against it.

So the same democratic republic can be "good" and "bad" at the same time — it is "yes" and "no."

The same thing may be said about the eight-hour day, which is good and bad at the same time: "good" in so far as it strengthens the proletariat, and "bad" in so far as it strengthens the wage system.

It was facts of this kind that Engels had in mind when he characterised the dialectical method in the words we quoted above.

The Anarchists, however, fail to understand this, and an absolutely clear idea seems to them to be nebulous "sophistry."

The Anarchists are, of course, at liberty to note or ignore these facts, they may even ignore the sand on the sandy seashore — they have every right to do that. But why drag in the dialectical method, which, unlike anarchism, does not look at life with its eyes shut, which has its finger on the pulse of life and openly says: since life changes and is in motion, every phenomenon of life has two trends: a positive and a negative; the first we must defend, the second we must reject.

To proceed further. In the opinion of our Anarchists, "dialectical development is catastrophic development, by means of which, first the past is utterly destroyed, and then the future is established quite separately. . . . Cuvier's cataclysms were due to unknown causes, but Marx and Engels's catastrophes are engendered by dialectics" (see Nobati, No. 8. Sh. G.).

Much more at link.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm

This is a long piece and a must read. We can discuss the merits and demerits at length.

J. V. Stalin


Much more at link.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm

"Stalinist" as a pejorative frustrates me on many levels. Of all works, Stalin's pieces are the easiest to understand and relate to. It's no wonder he was both revered and feared; it's not a matter of blind faith.


The point is that Marxism and anarchism are built up on entirely different principles, in spite of the fact that both come into the arena of the struggle under the flag of socialism. The cornerstone of anarchism is the individual, whose emancipation, according to its tenets, is the principal condition for the emancipation of the masses, the collective body. According to the tenets of anarchism, the emancipation of the masses is impossible until the individual is emancipated. Accordingly, its slogan is: "Everything for the individual." The cornerstone of Marxism, however, is the masses, whose emancipation, according to its tenets, is the principal condition for the emancipation of the individual. That is to say, according to the tenets of Marxism, the emancipation of the individual is impossible until the masses are emancipated. Accordingly, its slogan is: "Everything for the masses."

Clearly, we have here two principles, one negating the other, and not merely disagreements on tactics.

This paragsaph should be in bold on the front of the site.

"Stalinist" as a pejorative frustrates me on many levels. Of all works, Stalin's pieces are the easiest to understand and relate to. It's no wonder he was both revered and feared; it's not a matter of blind faith.

All of Stalin's writing is like this, direct with no frills. There are numerous interviews with him by journalists from all over and his verbal responses are the same.

The vilification of working class leaders is something we just have to take in stride and understand that the bourgeoisie and their toadies will mimic this line from now until they are silenced. One thing materialists understand is that the wheel always turns.

"Stalinist" as a pejorative frustrates me on many levels.

Its better this way because it is a litmus test for who is in and who is out, including and particularly amongst leftists. Its not the issue du jour, but we file it away for later.

All of Stalin's writing is like this, direct with no frills. There are numerous interviews with him by journalists from all over and his verbal responses are the same.

The vilification of working class leaders is something we just have to take in stride and understand that the bourgeoisie and their toadies will mimic this line from now until they are silenced. One thing materialists understand is that the wheel always turns.


You're a very funny cat Dhalgren. So funny in fact that I just couldn't resist doing a little digging to find the punchline. The stunning ability to project your own reaction outward and the astounding hypocrisy is very very amusing I must say. I won't hold it against you though:D

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x52511

"Isn't it just the worst indictment that a citizen can make regarding his/her own government?! We can not "assume that anything they say is true." We know now how the Soviet citizens felt during the Soviet Union's entire history. We, however, can remember when things were different here. God, it is a sad thing to contemplate..."

--Dhalgren


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3197256

"True communist, here.And true communism is an ancient style of self-government and is the only way human being should live. The problem with the concept of "communism" is that it has been connected, ideologically, in people's minds with several pseudo-fascist regimes that really were not very "communistic", at all."

--Dhalgren

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x303246

"I agree. The Padilla kidnapping, detention, torture, "trial", and conviction is an ugly crime - not only against Mr. al-Muhajir, but against the US Constitution and the American people. This case ranks up right along side any of the heinous human rights abuses of the Nazis and the Stalinists and the Maoists. This is a national shame..."

--Dhalgren

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5588326

"George Bush is a criminal in the same way that Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin were. There is no power on Earth that can take him down. What do we do? What are our options? Do we just wring our hands and hope that the Democrats (mostly Bush-fellow-travelers) can do something? They can't or won't. There isn't one major politician in this country calling Bush a criminal. They are either afraid to say the truth or they do not believe it is the truth. If they are afraid, then what do we do? If they don't believe Bush is a murdering criminal, then what do we do? So far we have, essentially, shrugged our shoulders, like good Germans, and gone shopping. Who the hell are we? We are the dead..."

--Dhalgren


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1053988

"I believe that there are legitimate reasons for not supporting Edwards in the primaries, but his stands on poverty, health care, education and social justice are all good reasons to support him. His compassion for and championing of people who are being ground underfoot in this country are real and laudable. His social policies should all be ironclad planks in the Democratic Party's platform..."

--Dhalgren

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x200179

"I am thinking of a third party (after Nov. '04) that is made up of Greens, leftist Democrats, progressives of all stripes - even libertarian-leaning individuals. A truely Progressive/Populist/Peoples Party, dedicated to Truth, Justicce,and the American Way! Where the platform of our party might be written by someone...oh, I don't know...Dennis Kucinich, maybe? People say he will never leave the Dem party, well, his ideas can!"

--Dhalgren


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x200179


"It is a rarity in my experience to have a candidate who hits on "all cylinders", but Dennis does. I read things he has written or I hear one of his (for me) rarely affailable speeches and I find myself saying, "Yes! By god, yes!" I honestly cannot understand how anyone who earns under $100,000 a year, or loves their freedoms, or in concerned with the environment, or wants justice in the world, or etc., ect, could support anyone else. But, this is the time - if Democrats aren't motivated to put a real Democrat in the WH, then when will that time be.Let us be careful and not talk about the "BFEE" when what we're reallt talking about is the American Evil Empire."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x200179

"I have always felt Gephardt was very "old-time" Democrat in the best sense and his support of and by labor is admirable and to his credit. I would really need for him to express himself on his votes regarding his support of Empire for me to come back around to his candidacy. That is an obstacle in his path, as far as I am concerned. As for Sharpton and Moseley-Braun, their various and distinct positions are entirely supportable and neither of their records give me a problem - unless I've missed something.But, Kucinich, for me, is the complete package."


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2786078

"He's still a Socialist, isn't he? I have always greatly admired Sanders..."

You're a very funny cat Dhalgren. So funny in fact that I just couldn't resist doing a little digging to find the punchline. The stunning ability to project your own reaction outward and the astounding hypocrisy is very very amusing I must say. I won't hold it against you though:D

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x52511

"Isn't it just the worst indictment that a citizen can make regarding his/her own government?! We can not "assume that anything they say is true." We know now how the Soviet citizens felt during the Soviet Union's entire history. We, however, can remember when things were different here. God, it is a sad thing to contemplate..."

--Dhalgren


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3197256

"True communist, here.And true communism is an ancient style of self-government and is the only way human being should live. The problem with the concept of "communism" is that it has been connected, ideologically, in people's minds with several pseudo-fascist regimes that really were not very "communistic", at all."

--Dhalgren

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x303246

"I agree. The Padilla kidnapping, detention, torture, "trial", and conviction is an ugly crime - not only against Mr. al-Muhajir, but against the US Constitution and the American people. This case ranks up right along side any of the heinous human rights abuses of the Nazis and the Stalinists and the Maoists. This is a national shame..."

--Dhalgren

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5588326

"George Bush is a criminal in the same way that Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin were. There is no power on Earth that can take him down. What do we do? What are our options? Do we just wring our hands and hope that the Democrats (mostly Bush-fellow-travelers) can do something? They can't or won't. There isn't one major politician in this country calling Bush a criminal. They are either afraid to say the truth or they do not believe it is the truth. If they are afraid, then what do we do? If they don't believe Bush is a murdering criminal, then what do we do? So far we have, essentially, shrugged our shoulders, like good Germans, and gone shopping. Who the hell are we? We are the dead..."

--Dhalgren


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1053988

"I believe that there are legitimate reasons for not supporting Edwards in the primaries, but his stands on poverty, health care, education and social justice are all good reasons to support him. His compassion for and championing of people who are being ground underfoot in this country are real and laudable. His social policies should all be ironclad planks in the Democratic Party's platform..."

--Dhalgren

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x200179

"I am thinking of a third party (after Nov. '04) that is made up of Greens, leftist Democrats, progressives of all stripes - even libertarian-leaning individuals. A truely Progressive/Populist/Peoples Party, dedicated to Truth, Justicce,and the American Way! Where the platform of our party might be written by someone...oh, I don't know...Dennis Kucinich, maybe? People say he will never leave the Dem party, well, his ideas can!"

--Dhalgren


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x200179


"It is a rarity in my experience to have a candidate who hits on "all cylinders", but Dennis does. I read things he has written or I hear one of his (for me) rarely affailable speeches and I find myself saying, "Yes! By god, yes!" I honestly cannot understand how anyone who earns under $100,000 a year, or loves their freedoms, or in concerned with the environment, or wants justice in the world, or etc., ect, could support anyone else. But, this is the time - if Democrats aren't motivated to put a real Democrat in the WH, then when will that time be.Let us be careful and not talk about the "BFEE" when what we're reallt talking about is the American Evil Empire."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x200179

"I have always felt Gephardt was very "old-time" Democrat in the best sense and his support of and by labor is admirable and to his credit. I would really need for him to express himself on his votes regarding his support of Empire for me to come back around to his candidacy. That is an obstacle in his path, as far as I am concerned. As for Sharpton and Moseley-Braun, their various and distinct positions are entirely supportable and neither of their records give me a problem - unless I've missed something.But, Kucinich, for me, is the complete package."


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2786078

"He's still a Socialist, isn't he? I have always greatly admired Sanders..."

Ah, the Ghost of Christmas Past has made an appearance. Please stop the personal attacks. No one cares.

Ah, the Ghost of Christmas Past has made an appearance. Please stop the personal attacks. No one cares.

You know, solidgold, it's okay. These are statements I actually made. Back then, I was as idealistic as steelpirate is now, so I know he can change, because I did. But he will have to want to change. I haven't posted on DU since 2008, maybe earlier, but I fell in with a bunch a materialists who kept urging me to "read this guy" and "read that guy". And I read and I listened and I argued and I displayed ignorance and backwardness - every bit as badly as steelpirate does now. So, again, I know he can change - he won't be able to help it. I am not the same guy I was back then - still have a lot to learn and I am working on it. But, you see, SP is showing how non-materialist he is. I said, "materialists understand is that the wheel always turns." By trying to show that I am a liar or stupid or...something (I'm not sure what), he is actually pointing out that he doesn't understand materialism. We change, we are dynamic, we progress or we decay - one thing is, we never stay the same. Only an idealist would think otherwise.

Edit to add: This is just a kinda funny observation. SP did not respond to the posted material, he simply tried to attack me. No critique of the ideas, just personal insult. He has a long, long way to go...

More from Uncle Joe:


History shows that if at different times men were imbued with different ideas and desires, the reason for this is that at different times men fought nature in different ways to satisfy their needs and, accordingly, their economic relations assumed different forms. There was a time when men fought nature collectively, on the basis of primitive communism; at that time their property was communist property and, therefore, at that time they drew scarcely any distinction between "mine" and "thine," their consciousness was communistic. There came a time when the distinction between "mine" and "thine" penetrated the process of production; at that time property, too, assumed a private, individualist character and, therefore, the consciousness of men became imbued with the sense of private property. Then came the time, the present time, when production is again assuming a social character and, consequently, property, too, will soon assume a social character — and this is precisely why the consciousness of men is gradually becoming imbued with socialism.

Here is a simple illustration. Let us take a shoemaker who owned a tiny workshop, but who, unable to withstand the competition of the big manufacturers, closed his workshop and took a job, say, at Adelkhanov's shoe factory in Tiflis. He went to work at Adelkhanov's factory not with the view to becoming a permanent wage-worker, but with the object of saving up some money, of accumulating a little capital to enable him to reopen his workshop. As you see, the position of this shoemaker is already proletarian, but his consciousness is still non-proletarian, it is thoroughly petty-bourgeois. In other words, this shoemaker has already lost his petty-bourgeois position, it has gone, but his petty-bourgeois consciousness has not yet gone, it has lagged behind his actual position.

Clearly, here too, in social life, first the external conditions change, first the conditions of men change and then their consciousness changes accordingly.

But let us return to our shoemaker. As we already know, he intends to save up some money and then reopen his workshop. This proletarianised shoemaker goes on working, but finds that it is a very difficult matter to save money, because what he earns barely suffices to maintain an existence. Moreover, he realises that the opening of a private workshop is after all not so alluring: the rent he will have to pay for the premises, the caprices of customers, shortage of money, the competition of the big manufacturers and similar worries — such are the many troubles that torment the private workshop owner. On the other hand, the proletarian is relatively freer from such cares; he is not troubled by customers, or by having to pay rent for premises. He goes to the factory every morning, "calmly" goes home in the evening, and as calmly pockets his "pay" on Saturdays. Here, for the first time, the wings of our shoemaker's petty-bourgeois dreams are clipped; here for the first time proletarian strivings awaken in his soul.

Time passes and our shoemaker sees that he has not enough money to satisfy his most essential needs, that what he needs very badly is a rise in wages. At the same time, he hears his fellow-workers talking about unions and strikes. Here our shoemaker realises that in order to improve his conditions he must fight the masters and not open a workshop of his own. He joins the union, enters the strike movement, and soon becomes imbued with socialist ideas. . . .

Thus, in the long run, the change in the shoemaker's material conditions was followed by a change in his consciousness: first his material conditions changed, and then, after a time, his consciousness changed accordingly.

The same must be said about classes and about society as a whole.

In social life, too, first the external conditions change, first the material conditions change, and then the ideas of men, their habits, customs and their world outlook change accordingly.

That is why Marx says:

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."

This is simplistically expressed, but that is most of its beauty. Anyone, at any level of development can easily grasp these ideas.

Ah, the Ghost of Christmas Past has made an appearance. Please stop the personal attacks. No one cares.

You're soliciting in the wrong pew and you will get very little for your efforts. You want to join in a witch hunt you will get it back ten fold. You're outgunned Jack or in your case Jacksoness ? You... nor anybody in this funhouse is in any position to question my credentials in the struggle.

You know, solidgold, it's okay. These are statements I actually made. Back then, I was as idealistic as steelpirate is now, so I know he can change, because I did. But he will have to want to change. I haven't posted on DU since 2008, maybe earlier, but I fell in with a bunch a materialists who kept urging me to "read this guy" and "read that guy". And I read and I listened and I argued and I displayed ignorance and backwardness - every bit as badly as steelpirate does now. So, again, I know he can change - he won't be able to help it. I am not the same guy I was back then - still have a lot to learn and I am working on it. But, you see, SP is showing how non-materialist he is. I said, "materialists understand is that the wheel always turns." By trying to show that I am a liar or stupid or...something (I'm not sure what), he is actually pointing out that he doesn't understand materialism. We change, we are dynamic, we progress or we decay - one thing is, we never stay the same. Only an idealist would think otherwise.

Edit to add: This is just a kinda funny observation. SP did not respond to the posted material, he simply tried to attack me. No critique of the ideas, just personal insult. He has a long, long way to go...


You're standing on home plate with a tennis racket thinking you're hitting home runs. You ain't in the ball bark and you're beating a dead horse of irrelevance. NOBODY gives a fuck about Stalin in the here and now. If they did I would be using more of it. This is not Marxism you are indulging in. This is your own personal triumph of "your personal awakening." Some of us never needed a fucking awakening Dhalgren... we always hated the boss and the fucking landlords. You're like a grade school child who has acquired some small bit of knowledge and wishes to show all the other kids how much smarter you are. You are fucking with the wrong motherfucker Dhalgren and you're as clueless as the day is long.

https://disqus.com/home/discussion/truthdig/paul_street_trumpism_made_in_the_united_states_by_republican_hate_and_democratic_hypocrisy_truthdig/

You're soliciting in the wrong pew and you will get very little for your efforts. You want to join in a witch hunt you will get it back ten fold. You're outgunned Jack or in your case Jacksoness ? You... nor anybody in this funhouse is in any position to question my credentials in the struggle.

HA HA HA! I'm sorry, I was never going to respond to you, but this is so funny I can't help! Your "credentials "? Man you are spam, at best -funny spam. "Credentials"! Ha ha ha ha ha ha

HA HA HA! I'm sorry, I was never going to respond to you, but this is so funny I can't help! Your "credentials "? Man you are spam, at best -funny spam. "Credentials"! Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Are you "cured" yet Dhalgren ? IMFAO I still think you got liberal blood running through your veins and a lot of it. You got more balls than smarts though. Did you think you could continue this charade with no push back ? Maybe I should dig into the population control and the Deep Ecology next.

"We must depopulate the working class to save it!!!" That some deep thinking Marxism there. LMFAO

Are you "cured" yet Dhalgren ? IMFAO I still think you got liberal blood running through your veins and a lot of it. You got more balls than smarts though. Did you think you could continue this charade with no push back ? Maybe I should dig into the population control and the Deep Ecology next.

"We must depopulate the working class to save it!!!" That some deep thinking Marxism there. LMFAO

Yeah. "Pushback". You are a poor assed joke. I have some papers from grammar school that really make me look stupid - want those - could care less.

And while you are still here, you need to update your script or have someone do it for you. That "first base with a tennis racket" has not only been over used, it never really applied. You need a better script.

I think that you need to return to where your "credentials" mean something - I'm sure we both know where that is. It has been fun watching you melt down and go all "liberal on our asses", but the fun is over. I can't see why you want to hang out with authoritarian dictatorship supporters, anyway, so see ya'

More from Joe


The dialectical method affirms that only that class which is growing day by day, which always marches forward and fights unceasingly for a better future, can be progressive to the end, only that class can smash the yoke of slavery. We see that the only class which is steadily growing, which always marches forward and is fighting for the future is the urban and rural proletariat. Therefore, we must serve the proletariat and place our hopes on it.

Such is the first practical conclusion to be drawn from Marx's theoretical doctrine.

But there is service and service. Bernstein also "serves" the proletariat when he urges it to forget about socialism. Kropotkin also "serves" the proletariat when he offers it community "socialism," which is scattered and has no broad industrial base. And Karl Marx serves the proletariat when he calls it to proletarian socialism, which will rest on the broad basis of modern large-scale industry.

What must we do in order that our activities may benefit the proletariat? How should we serve the proletariat?

The materialist theory affirms that a given ideal may be of direct service to the proletariat only if it does not run counter to the economic development of the country, if it fully answers to the requirements of that development. The economic development of the capitalist system shows that present-day production is assuming a social character, that the social character of production is a fundamental negation of existing capitalist property; consequently, our main task is to help to abolish capitalist property and to establish socialist property. And that means that the doctrine of Bernstein, who urges that socialism should be forgotten, fundamentally contradicts the requirements of economic development—it is harmful to the proletariat.

Further, the economic development of the capitalist system shows that present-day production is expanding day by day; it is not confined within the limits of individual towns and provinces, but constantly overflows these limits and embraces the territory of the whole state—consequently, we must welcome the expansion of production and regard as the basis of future socialism not separate towns and communities, but the entire and indivisible territory of the whole state which, in future, will, of course, expand more and more. And this means that the doctrine advocated by Kropotkin, which confines future socialism within the limits of separate towns and communities, is contrary to the interests of a powerful expansion of production—it is harmful to the proletariat.

Fight for a broad socialist life as the principal goal — this is how we should serve the proletariat.

Such is the second practical conclusion to be drawn from Marx's theoretical doctrine.

Clearly, proletarian socialism is the logical deduction from dialectical materialism.

What is proletarian socialism?

The present system is a capitalist system. This means that the world is divided up into two opposing camps, the camp of a small handful of capitalists and the camp of the majority—the proletarians. The proletarians work day and night, nevertheless they remain poor. The capitalists do not work, nevertheless they are rich. This takes place not because the proletarians are unintelligent and the capitalists are geniuses, but because the capitalists appropriate the fruits of the labour of the proletarians, because the capitalists exploit the proletarians.

Why are the fruits of the labour of the proletarians appropriated by the capitalists and not by the proletarians? Why do the capitalists exploit the proletarians and not vice versa?

Because the capitalist system is based on commodity production: here everything assumes the form of a commodity, everywhere the principle of buying and selling prevails. Here you can buy not only articles of consumption, not only food products, but also the labour power of men, their blood and their consciences. The capitalists know all this and purchase the labour power of the proletarians, they hire them. This means that the capitalists become the owners of the labour power they buy. The proletarians, however, lose their right to the labour power which they have sold. That is to say, what is produced by that labour power no longer belongs to the proletarians, it belongs only to the capitalists and goes into their pockets. The labour power which you have sold may produce in the course of a day goods to the value of 100 rubles, but that is not your business, those goods do not belong to you, it is the business only of the capitalists, and the goods belong to them—all that you are due to receive is your daily wage which, perhaps, may be sufficient to satisfy your essential needs if, of course, you live frugally. Briefly: the capitalists buy the labour power of the proletarians, they hire the proletarians, and this is precisely why the capitalists appropriate the fruits of the labour of the proletarians, this is precisely why the capitalists exploit the proletarians and not vice versa.
But why is it precisely the capitalists who buy the labour power of the proletarians? Why do the capitalists hire the proletarians and not vice versa?

Because the principal basis of the capitalist system is the private ownership of the instruments and means of production. Because the factories, mills, the land and minerals, the forests, the railways, machines and other means of production have become the private property of a small handful of capitalists. Because the proletarians lack all this. That is why the capitalists hire proletarians to keep the factories and mills going—if they did not do that their instruments and means of production would yield no profit. That is why the proletarians sell their labour power to the capitalists—if they did not, they would die of starvation.

All this throws light on the general character of capitalist production. Firstly, it is self-evident that capitalist production cannot be united and organised: it is all split up among the private enterprises of individual capitalists. Secondly, it is also clear that the immediate purpose of this scattered production is not to satisfy the needs of the people, but to produce goods for sale in order to increase the profits of the capitalists. But as every capitalist strives to increase his profits, each one tries to produce the largest possible quantity of goods and, as a result, the market is soon glutted, prices fall and—a general crisis sets in.

Thus, crises, unemployment, suspension of production, anarchy of production, and the like, are the direct results of present-day unorganised capitalist production.

If this unorganised social system still remains standing, if it still firmly withstands the attacks of the proletariat, it is primarily because it is protected by the capitalist state, by the capitalist government.

Such is the basis of present-day capitalist society.

The state protects the bourgeois power, that is what it is for. The working class must take over the state and use its power to protect the working class. The state, representing the power of the working class, must oppress all other classes and bring them into line with working class requirements. Later there can be a time of "no state", but it will be some time in the future, when the state "withers" from lack of need.

Are you "cured" yet Dhalgren ? IMFAO I still think you got liberal blood running through your veins and a lot of it. You got more balls than smarts though. Did you think you could continue this charade with no push back ? Maybe I should dig into the population control and the Deep Ecology next.

"We must depopulate the working class to save it!!!" That some deep thinking Marxism there. LMFAO

Relax.

The topic of this thread is perfect for us to discuss our differences in a non-personal way.

Relax.

The topic of this thread is perfect for us to discuss our differences in a non-personal way.

He is just making shit up now. He has yet to discuss anything of substance. He has yet to involve himself in any critiques or analyses of anything, at all. He seems bend on disruption. Don't know why.

Because the capitalist system is based on commodity production: here everything assumes the form of a commodity, everywhere the principle of buying and selling prevails. Here you can buy not only articles of consumption, not only food products, but also the labour power of men, their blood and their consciences. The capitalists know all this and purchase the labour power of the proletarians, they hire them. This means that the capitalists become the owners of the labour power they buy. The proletarians, however, lose their right to the labour power which they have sold. That is to say, what is produced by that labour power no longer belongs to the proletarians, it belongs only to the capitalists and goes into their pockets.

This is the condition for acquiring sustenance, shelter, medical aid, education, in short, everything that is needed by the workers. This does not simply disappear overnight with the overthrow of capitalism. How can the working class insure that all these requirements are met? We can look to history for good answers - and all those answers come from communists who have actually won revolutions.

More from Joe



The state protects the bourgeois power, that is what it is for. The working class must take over the state and use its power to protect the working class. The state, representing the power of the working class, must oppress all other classes and bring them into line with working"wot class requirements. Later there can be a time of "no state", but it will be some time in the future, when the state "withers" from lack of need.

To be honest, I don't really understand the "wither away" state thing.

To be honest, I don't really understand the "wither away" state thing.

Well, I hope the Kid comes in and corrects me, but I think it means essentially that socialism must lead to communism. Communism is a society without classes - or a society with but one class. Since that purpose of a "state" is the suppression of all other classes for the benefit of a ruling class, once there are no classes, no state is required and it just devolves through lack of use and need. If there is no private property to protect, no borders to guard, no citizen in a condition of want, where is the state of any use. What would it "do", without anything to control? Marx saw the end of socialism as the disappearance of the state - eventually.

Relax.

The topic of this thread is perfect for us to discuss our differences in a non-personal way.

"Relax" is the voice of the boss. The voice of the ruling class. That is what got us to this point. Deference to the voice of the boss. There can be no deference paid to voice of the boss from the workers.

"Relax" is the voice of the boss. The voice of the ruling class. That is what got us to this point. Deference to the voice of the boss. There can be no deference paid to voice of the boss from the workers.

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/relax

If you would like to choose a more suitable term, feel free to consult others at the next dumpster dive.

Well, I hope the Kid comes in and corrects me, but I think it means essentially that socialism must lead to communism. Communism is a society without classes - or a society with but one class. Since that purpose of a "state" is the suppression of all other classes for the benefit of a ruling class, once there are no classes, no state is required and it just devolves through lack of use and need. If there is no private property to protect, no borders to guard, no citizen in a condition of want, where is the state of any use. What would it "do", without anything to control? Marx saw the end of socialism as the disappearance of the state - eventually.

I suppose I'm unsure of the definition of "state."

To be honest, I don't really understand the "wither away" state thing.


Marx and Engels despised the state. It was only supposed to be - the working class in control of the state - necessary on the way to communism (stateless society without class distinctions along with super abundance) Marx and Engels weren't above a little idealism and utopianism of their own. It hasn't worked out that way to date and it's certainly up for debate if the working class HAS EVER BEEN IN CONTROL OF THE STATE under "existing socialism."

The Origin of Family, Private Property and State

"The state has not existed for all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no idea of the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the split of society into classes, the state became a necessity owing to this split. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes not only will have ceased to be a necessity, but will become a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they arose at an earlier stage. Along with them the state will inevitably fall. Society will then reorganise production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers, and will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the museum of antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe."

--Friedrich Engels

I suppose I'm unsure of the definition of "state."

Its an interesting question because Engels introduced the phrase "withering away of the State" but credited the idea to Marx (and, possibly/probably, earlier pre-scientific socialists). Lenin returned to this topic in 1917 but world events took on a life of their own in a hurry (there is a sub-debate with Bukharin that is worth some consideration -- although it is much more about Bukharin than Lenin..and the former's proclivity towards eye-rolling stupidity on several important subjects).

Perhaps you're wondering if there is a Hegelian "spin" involved..and the answer is 'maybe'. Certainly, classless society Part Deux (after Primitive Communism) will be birthed from the social conditions that engender it, which includes the State (dialectical movement). And the 'withering away' will be a function of the fact that the State has become irrational (which is straight Hegel). But I wouldn't wander too far down the "Geist" hole or anything.

However, a little philosophy is key to reconciling the apparatus of the capitalist State -- which is sometimes played off as neutral even though we know it is not -- with the overarching concept of the State which prevails throughout the history of class society. It boils down to the fact that the ORGANIZATION of the State is fluid but nevertheless consistently retains the heavy handed imprimatur of the ruling class.

In the case of capitalist production, the State is the bulwark of CIVIL society (the state of the whole people) -- which does not/can not cease to be an issue overnight or by fiat. Citizenship, and not the formal/ersatz kind, remains a major item on the agenda involving the "government of persons". In particular, these are the democratic urgings and demands of the ALL the people (workers+oppressed). This is separate but not disconnected from production.

Of course, all of the above exists under the aegis of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Here is Engels:

The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then ceases of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away.

Marx and Engels despised the state. It was only supposed to be - the working class in control of the state - necessary on the way to communism (stateless society without class distinctions along with super abundance) Marx and Engels weren't above a little idealism and utopianism of their own. It hasn't worked out that way to date and it's certainly up for debate if the working class HAS EVER BEEN IN CONTROL OF THE STATE under "existing socialism."

The problem is you either have to define your terms -- AND DEFEND YOUR DEFINITIONS -- or you're talking out of your ass. For starters, you're not even close to correct about the Marxist theory of the State.

Here's a little something from Mr. Freddy, and man, he rocks:


Supposing a social revolution dethroned the capitalists, who now exercise their authority over the production and circulation of wealth. Supposing, to adopt entirely the point of view of the anti-authoritarians, that the land and the instruments of labour had become the collective property of the workers who use them. Will authority have disappeared, or will it only have changed its form? Let us see.

Let us take by way if example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the portals of these factories: Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate! [Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]

If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.

Let us take another example — the railway. Here too the co-operation of an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this co-operation must be practised during precisely fixed hours so that no accidents may happen. Here, too, the first condition of the job is a dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution of the resolutions of the majority of persona interested. In either case there is a very pronounced authority. Moreover, what would happen to the first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the Hon. passengers were abolished?

But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and absolute obedience of all to the will of one.

When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.

We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make products circulate.

We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the world.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

I think the expression is, "'Nough said"...

Yeah, it's not that difficult

"Relax" is the voice of the boss. The voice of the ruling class. That is what got us to this point. Deference to the voice of the boss. There can be no deference paid to voice of the boss from the workers.

SG is certainly not 'the boss'. All you demonstrate here is juvenile whine, the hyper individuality of the sub-adult human, a state extended and preserved by capitalist society not so much as a conscious operation but as a net result of government propaganda including education, marketing and the content of art and entertainment which are conditioned by the economic environment. Be assured this is no comment on actual age, there's boatloads of teenagers walking around in 50 year old bodies. Part and parcel of the 'self-improvement' industry too. So it is hardly surprising that idealistic political ideas are favored and to a large degree tolerated as they are futile and no real danger to the established order. Communists, on the other hand, get piled on by all sides. Wonder why that is, hmmm? Perhaps cause commies have done it and all the idealists do is talk about it. Marxist-Leninism is what works.

You might consider the fact that the 'founding fathers' of anarchism were largely aristocrats, there's a clue there.

I find it interesting that you keep a DU membership enabling you to do the search required to bring up those old posts of Dhal's. And that you think that in any way relevant. Do the same for me and it will be even more embarrassing, if I gave a shit. All this contrast does is show that we are capable of learning.And sometimes that does not come easily at all, as a look at our 'Reading Capital' will reveal. What a dunderhead I am. Nobody put a gun to my head, could have been reading Natural History sheerly for pleasure but ya know what, this is necessary.

No more personal attacks or you're outta here, all you're doing is stirring shit.

Oh yeah, Merry Christmas.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C0iFBqrWEAAoSE0.jpg

Mao Zedong studying the writings of J. V. Stalin in the Yenan base area during the Chinese Revolution

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxaQuFzXEAAzeM1.jpg

just sayin'....

courtesy austin ‏@sustinaanford

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists.

This is from the Mr. Engels quotation above.

If there is an argument to be made regarding anarchy or anti-authoritarian drivel it must come from some source that advocates it. Not a source that simply disparages Marx, Engels, or Lenin, but one that actually promotes the ideology being proffered. So far we have seen nothing. Where does the idea that tearing down the messenger, ridiculing the person, is all that is necessary to refute the ideas being argued? "These ideas are wrong because the person who expressed them is a ______" or "comes from ______!" Now, if a person expressing ideas is a Trot, or a Nazi, or a Liberal/progressive or a Democrat or a Republican (same thing), or what-have-you, then that must be born in mind while evaluating his/her statements and declarations, but it cannot "be" the reason for refutation (except, perhaps, as short-hand among friends) - and even with these caveats, the person's statements cannot be dismissed, out-of-hand, without analysis (of whatever degree).

Anarchism and Socialism (1901)
V.I. Lenin

Theses:

1. Anarchism, in the course of the 35 to 40 years (Bakunin and the International, 1866–) of its existence (and with Stirner included, in the course of many more years) has produced nothing but general platitudes against exploitation.

These phrases have been current for more than 2,000 years. What is missing is (alpha) an understanding of the causes of exploitation; (beta) an understanding of the development of society, which leads to socialism; (gamma) an understanding of the class struggle as the creative force for the realisation of socialism.

2. An understanding of the causes of exploitation. Private property as the basis of commodity economy. Social property in the means of production. In anarchism–nil.

Anarchism is bourgeois individualism in reverse. Individualism as the basis of the entire anarchist world outlook.

{Defence of petty property and petty economy on the land. Keine Majorität.[1]

Negation of the unifying and organising power of the authority.}

3. Failure to understand the development of society–the role of large-scale production–the development of capitalism into socialism.

(Anarchism is a product of despair. The psychology of the unsettled intellectual or the vagabond and not of the proletarian.)

4. Failure to understand the class struggle of the proletariat.

Absurd negation of politics in bourgeois society.

Failure to understand the role of the organisation and the education of the workers.

Panaceas consisting of one-sided, disconnected means.

5. What has anarchism, at one time dominant in the Romance countries, contributed in recent European history?

– No doctrine, revolutionary teaching, or theory.

– Fragmentation of the working-class movement.

– Complete fiasco in the experiments of the revolutionary movement (Proudhonism, 1871; Bakuninism, 1873).

– Subordination of the working class to bourgeois politics in the guise of negation of politics.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/dec/31.htm

My emphasis

As the Kid said, this isn't even difficult.

I suppose I'm unsure of the definition of "state."

This has probably already been answered adequately, but, anyway...

The "state" is the entire organization and structure for the implantation of power of one class over all others. It is the expression of the political unity of the ruling class, functioning as an entity in the world. It is all of the constitutional documents, laws, courts, armies, police forces, magistrates, bureaucrats, functionaries, elected officials - everything that can be said to function for or act as a controlling or directive force in a citizens life. Even being a citizen is an act of state. Now, I should get lots of flak all around for this, ha!

The problem is you either have to define your terms -- AND DEFEND YOUR DEFINITIONS -- or you're talking out of your ass. For starters, you're not even close to correct about the Marxist theory of the State.
[/COLOR]

LOL...I don't have to define shit Kid. I made the exact point you did in two sentences that the workers can understand. Of course ...I'm not a navel-gazing Marxist/Leninist who needs two dozen pages to break it down into mass confusion in the form of profound theory :D Marx and Engels DESPISED the state. The end game of Marxism is the end of class distinctions and the state. Prove me wrong.

Here's a little something from Mr. Freddy, and man, he rocks:



https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

I think the expression is, "'Nough said"...


The Paris commune was not led by a party vanguard. Period and end of story. You can make the case that it should have been but that's an entirely different matter. The dispute is not whether the working class should seize power. The dispute is whether a party of autocratic scumbags should be allowed to represent the workers in power.

The Paris commune was not led by a party vanguard. Period and end of story. You can make the case that it should have been but that's an entirely different matter. The dispute is not whether the working class should seize power. The dispute is whether a party of autocratic scumbags should be allowed to represent the workers in power.

It isn't ME saying this, it is Engels saying it. Engels says the Commune used its authority to suppress the bourgeoisie and should have used even more.

A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?


You are squeaking from the baseboards dude. Marx and Engels did not "despise" the state, that is an infantile expression and not one either would use. They knew that the state was necessary, as a coercive power to force the subjection of all classes to the will of the ruling class. If you actually read Engels, instead of just quote bombing, you know this. And when you say that Marx and Engels showed "idealism and utopianism", you have to defend that. Defend it with proof and evidence, not just declarative statements.

It isn't ME saying this, it is Engels saying it. Engels says the Commune used its authority to suppress the bourgeoisie and should have used even more. You are squeaking from the baseboards dude. Marx and Engels did not "despise" the state, that is an infantile expression and not one either would use. They knew that the state was necessary, as a coercive power to force the subjection of all classes to the will of the ruling class. If you actually read Engels, instead of just quote bombing, you know this. And when you say that Marx and Engels showed "idealism and utopianism", you have to defend that. Defend it with proof and evidence, not just declarative statements.

Stop drifting on multiple points. The rest can be discussed in context....the point here is that the revolution of the commune came from below and not from a vanguard leading the way. Nobody is saying the workers shouldn't have used their power more. What is being said is that any party will not be making the decisions in regards to power. The workers will. Any party formation will be subject to the control of the workers in direct democratic fashion. The workers will not be subject to control by the party in dictatorial fashion.

Stop drifting on multiple points. The rest can be discussed in context....the point here is that the revolution of the commune came from below and not from a vanguard leading the way. Nobody is saying the workers shouldn't have used their power more. What is being said is that any party will not be making the decisions in regards to power. The workers will. Any party formation will be subject to the control of the workers in direct democratic fashion. The workers will not be subject to control of the party in pictorial fashion.

Do you know how the Commune was organized?

Do you know how the Commune was organized?

Make your points and stop playing games if you want discussion. The commune was a social revolution of workers seizing power. It was not a political revolution with a vanguard seizing power. There is a difference. There is ZERO resemblance between the commune's short lived attempted worker assembly government and what the Bolshevik revolution morphed into. ZERO

Make your points and stop playing games if you want discussion. The commune was a social revolution of workers seizing power. It was not a political revolution with a vanguard seizing power. There is a difference. There is ZERO resemblance between the commune's short lived attempted worker assembly government and what the Bolshevik revolution morphed into. ZERO

You know that Marx and Engels both cast the Commune as a prefiguring of the future societies which would effect the transition to a classless stateless association of workers. Marx added a poetic turn to the Commune, but you are also aware that Marx+Engels were critical of the FAILURE of the Commune to politicize itself through the centralization of its power.

This is not a new dispute and nor is anything being said here adding to the discussion at this late date.

If you take out the "dictator" you get the Ship of the Proletariat and you end up lost at sea.

Make your points and stop playing games if you want discussion. The commune was a social revolution of workers seizing power. It was not a political revolution with a vanguard seizing power. There is a difference. There is ZERO resemblance between the commune's short lived attempted worker assembly government and what the Bolshevik revolution morphed into. ZERO

The Commune was a workers revolution in the middle of a war. The Bolshevik Revolution was a workers revolution in the middle of a war. The Commune was formed by workers electing representatives to the Central Committee, which had the power of live and death over all citizens. The Soviets were formed by workers electing representative to the various soviets all of which send representatives to the central committee - with live and death power over the citizenry. The Commune had to immediately defend itself from domestic and foreign armies bent on its destruction. The Bolsheviks had to immediately defend themselves from domestic and foreign armies bent on its destruction.
There are many variants, between the two revolutions, but there are many similarities; the main difference that you insist upon is that a "vanguard" party means that it is an essentially anti-worker organization. Can you show any evidence that the presence of a "vanguard" party equals an anti-worker organization?

Make your points and stop playing games if you want discussion. The commune was a social revolution of workers seizing power. It was not a political revolution with a vanguard seizing power. There is a difference. There is ZERO resemblance between the commune's short lived attempted worker assembly government and what the Bolshevik revolution morphed into. ZERO

What is the difference between a "social" revolution and a "political" revolution?

What is the difference between a "social" revolution and a "political" revolution?

Don't cede an inch Dhal. Ask him how a tiny vanguard could seize political power absent a social revolution. Ask him why the commune's ATTEMPTED worker assembly government was short lived. Ask him when, how. and why the Bolshevik revolution morphed into [[whateverthehellheclaimsitbecame]]

Don't cede an inch Dhal. Ask him how a tiny vanguard could seize political power absent a social revolution. Ask him why the commune's ATTEMPTED worker assembly government was short lived. Ask him when, how. and why the Bolshevik revolution morphed into [[whateverthehellheclaimsitbecame]]

I'm just waiting for any kind of answer to any question asked! Every question gets a "quit playing games" response.

Don't cede an inch Dhal. Ask him how a tiny vanguard could seize political power absent a social revolution. Ask him why the commune's ATTEMPTED worker assembly government was short lived. Ask him when, how. and why the Bolshevik revolution morphed into [[whateverthehellheclaimsitbecame]]

Here's another little tidbit from Freddy Engels:


On April 1 it was decided that the highest salary received by any employee of the Commune, and therefore also by its members themselves, might not exceed 6,000 francs.

So, does this mean that the commune was living off the labor of the workers? Was the commune exploiting the labor of the people? Ye gods, no!

You know that Marx and Engels both cast the Commune as a prefiguring of the future societies which would effect the transition to a classless stateless association of workers. Marx added a poetic turn to the Commune, but you are also aware that Marx+Engels were critical of the FAILURE of the Commune to politicize itself through the centralization of its power.

This is not a new dispute and nor is anything being said here adding to the discussion at this late date.

If you take out the "dictator" you get the Ship of the Proletariat and you end up lost at sea.

No..the differences are an important point. Working class control with the representatives of that control subject TO FULL RECALL in a workers democracy is a far different beast than party control of the workers with the workers having NO RECALL AT ALL in iron clad top down party rule.

The Commune was a workers revolution in the middle of a war. The Bolshevik Revolution was a workers revolution in the middle of a war. The Commune was formed by workers electing representatives to the Central Committee, which had the power of live and death over all citizens. The Soviets were formed by workers electing representative to the various soviets all of which send representatives to the central committee - with live and death power over the citizenry. The Commune had to immediately defend itself from domestic and foreign armies bent on its destruction. The Bolsheviks had to immediately defend themselves from domestic and foreign armies bent on its destruction.
There are many variants, between the two revolutions, but there are many similarities; the main difference that you insist upon is that a "vanguard" party means that it is an essentially anti-worker organization. Can you show any evidence that the presence of a "vanguard" party equals an anti-worker organization?

Yes...we've been over this before and you accepted no sources as evidence you were willing to consider. This is not a small issue. This is the whole ball of wax on this dispute. The Leninist interpretation of Marx and Engels in regards to what constitutes a dictatorship of the proletariat in the transition is far from the only one. There are several and none adhere to the Leninist vanguard as truly representative of working class power in that transition. Now you can disagree with those interpretations, you can call them all "idealism", you can call them all "anti-communist" but that is verifiable fact. The Leninist interpretation of Marx and Engels is one of many.

"The Leninist interpretation of Marx and Engels is one" to have actually succeeded in a revolution of the proletariat. Yes, I think we agree on this.

If your sources are not acceptable, then the arguments are no doubt suspect. Go ahead and give your sources. I will refrain from dismissing them out of hand and address them on their merits or demerits, as the case may be.

No..the differences are an important point. Working class control with the representatives of that control subject TO FULL RECALL in a workers democracy is a far different beast than party control of the workers with the workers having NO RECALL AT ALL in iron clad top down party rule.

Where are you getting all this? Who is subject to recall and who is not? Where are you getting your information?

No..the differences are an important point. Working class control with the representatives of that control subject TO FULL RECALL in a workers democracy is a far different beast than party control of the workers with the workers having NO RECALL AT ALL in iron clad top down party rule.

The people who made up the Bolshevik party were working class, they were proletariats. If yo say this isn't true, show where you get this information. We can show that the soviets in the military, in the factories, in the shipyards were all party members and all elected by their comrades.

No..the differences are an important point.

What do you want me to tell you? You know that our differences eventually end in an acrimonious split. You think the entire 20th century was a dead end that signified nothing but folly and misleadership. I think that the Soviet Union was wildly successful and serves as a waystation for all future efforts to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. Further, you've made a fetish/boogieman of, of all things, authority which at bottom is so openly idiotic that its not worth entertaining let alone discussing.

However, at the present I could care less. Now is not the time for sectarian fighting, which (ironically) has been one of your key bones of contention. Is society divided along class lines? You and I know that it is. Is class struggle the defining feature of our society? Again, we agree that it is. We can pretty much defer every disagreement, provided we agree on the emphasis on class. Later on we can have the bitter knock down drag out divorce you're pining for. Or are you insisting on a prenup?

"The Leninist interpretation of Marx and Engels is one" to have actually succeeded in a revolution of the proletariat. Yes, I think we agree on this.

If your sources are not acceptable, then the arguments are no doubt suspect. Go ahead and give your sources. I will refrain from dismissing them out of hand and address them on their merits or demerits, as the case may be.

The research is in abundance. If you want me to start digging so you can run shit off of that then it will have to be piecemeal. If you want to do your own digging for Christ sakes go to Marxist internet archives and look at the work of the left communists, the anarchists, the IWW, ect. It's all there. It's all anti-capitalist left despite not being the Marxist/Leninist variety. You denounce anything that isn't the Marxist/Leninist line so nothing will satisfy. If you're intent on keeping this strictly Marxist/Leninist then I can't see how that would be what you want other than fodder for your screeds.

The research is in abundance. If you want me to start digging so you can run shit off of that then it will have to be piecemeal. If you want to do your own digging for Christ sakes go to Marxist internet archives and look at the work of the left communists, the anarchists, the IWW, ect. It's all there. It's all anti-capitalist left despite not being the Marxist/Leninist variety. You denounce anything that isn't the Marxist/Leninist line so nothing will satisfy. If you're intent on keeping this strictly Marxist/Leninist then I can't see how that would be what you want other than fodder for your screeds.

Yeah, I've already read a lot of that at MIA. I have yet to see any argument that counters Marxism Leninism, so if that is where you are coming from, I suppose dropping it is best. As the Kid said up thread, if you want to discuss things that do not hinge on this issue, have at it.

SG is certainly not 'the boss'. All you demonstrate here is juvenile whine, the hyper individuality of the sub-adult human, a state extended and preserved by capitalist society not so much as a conscious operation but as a net result of government propaganda including education, marketing and the content of art and entertainment which are conditioned by the economic environment. Be assured this is no comment on actual age, there's boatloads of teenagers walking around in 50 year old bodies. Part and parcel of the 'self-improvement' industry too. So it is hardly surprising that idealistic political ideas are favored and to a large degree tolerated as they are futile and no real danger to the established order. Communists, on the other hand, get piled on by all sides. Wonder why that is, hmmm? Perhaps cause commies have done it and all the idealists do is talk about it. Marxist-Leninism is what works.

You might consider the fact that the 'founding fathers' of anarchism were largely aristocrats, there's a clue there.

I find it interesting that you keep a DU membership enabling you to do the search required to bring up those old posts of Dhal's. And that you think that in any way relevant. Do the same for me and it will be even more embarrassing, if I gave a shit. All this contrast does is show that we are capable of learning.And sometimes that does not come easily at all, as a look at our 'Reading Capital' will reveal. What a dunderhead I am. Nobody put a gun to my head, could have been reading Natural History sheerly for pleasure but ya know what, this is necessary.

No more personal attacks or you're outta here, all you're doing is stirring shit.

Oh yeah, Merry Christmas.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C0iFBqrWEAAoSE0.jpg

I have no DU membership BP. It was exterminated with extreme prejudice after a rant calling John Lewis a sellout and a bootlicker for the capitalist ruling class. That said all that shit is easily found with a simple web search. Type in blindpig and democratic underground and you will find all your prior embarrassments :D

This is also hypocrisy BP of the highest order. I've taken plenty of incoming in the personal attacks department here. There ain't no daisies here. I also didn't say SG was the boss. I said SG was speaking in the tongues of the boss and management. You are also speaking in the tongues of management with this "personal attacks" shit. You're sounding like those chumps at the Elm Tree that threw you all out after the calls for civility.How many times have you been threatened with banishment and banished at those liberal joints because you refused the calls of civility and gentrified discussion. What's wrong with you man with that shit. You better than anyone else knows better.

Also... look at it this way. Whatever you think of my postings you are getting some hits you would otherwise not get. Dhal posts Stalin and the thread might get 25 reads. Some asshole like myself pops in to bounce shit off of and you get 400 reads on that thread. Consider it a service to you all getting to clarify your points :D

I have no DU membership BP. It was exterminated with extreme prejudice after a rant calling John Lewis a sellout and a bootlicker for the capitalist ruling class. That said all that shit is easily found with a simple web search. Type in blindpig and democratic underground and you will find all your prior embarrassments :D

This is also hypocrisy BP of the highest order. I've taken plenty of incoming in the personal attacks department here. There ain't no daisies here. I also didn't say SG was the boss. I said SG was speaking in the tongues of the boss and management. You are also speaking in the tongues of management with this "personal attacks" shit. You're sounding like those chumps at the Elm Tree that threw you all out after the calls for civility.How many times have you been threatened with banishment and banished at those liberal joints because you refused the calls of civility and gentrified discussion. What's wrong with you man with that shit. You better than anyone else knows better.

Also... look at it this way. Whatever you think of my postings you are getting some hits you would otherwise not get. Dhal posts Stalin and the thread might get 25 reads. Some asshole like myself pops in to bounce shit off of and you get 400 reads on that thread. Consider it a service to you all getting to clarify your points :D

You are completely wrong. When BP and others were banned from those liberal sites it was for posting in the exact same way we have been posting here. It was the liberals on those sites who went crazy with the personal smears - just as you have. You are the one who got nasty personal - no one else did. And the same is true on those other sites, but you know this. If you think we want "hits" because of some kind of mental breakdown on line, you are mistaken. Eyeballs are good, but not just any eyeballs. If the lurkers are just looking for shit being slung, like monkeys in a cage, they can go elsewhere. And that includes everyone.

We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are “free” to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm

This quotation works on so many levels - that is the beauty of Lenin.

Where are you getting all this? Who is subject to recall and who is not? Where are you getting your information?

Seems clear here on the matter of recall and Engels not being a fan of the state as the end-game.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat/civ-war-intro.htm

1891 Introduction by Frederick Engels On the 20th Anniversary of the Paris Commune

From the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself,and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment. What had been the characteristic attribute of the former state? Society had created its own organs to look after its common interests, originally through simple division of labor. But these organs, at whose head was the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance of their own special interests, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society, as can be seen, for example, not only in the hereditary monarchy, but equally also in the democratic republic. Nowhere do "politicians" form a more separate, powerful section of the nation than in North America. There, each of the two great parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the separate states, or who make a living by carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are rewarded with positions.

It is well known that the Americans have been striving for 30 years to shake off this yoke, which has become intolerable, and that in spite of all they can do they continue to stink ever deeper in this swamp of corruption. It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. and nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends -- and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it.

Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society -- an inevitable transformation in all previous states -- the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts -- administrative, judicial, and educational -- by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were also added in profusion.

This shattering of the former state power and its replacement by a new and really democratic state is described in detail in the third section of The Civil War. But it was necessary to dwell briefly here once more on some of its features, because in Germany particularly the superstitious belief in the state has been carried over from philosophy into the general consciousness of the bourgeoisie and even to many workers. According to the philosophical notion, the state is the "realization of the idea" or the Kingdom of God on earth, translated into philosophical terms, the sphere in which eternal truth and justice is or should be realized. And from this follows a superstitious reverence for the state and everything connected with it, which takes roots the more readily as people from their childhood are accustomed to imagine that the affairs and interests common to the whole of society could not be looked after otherwise than as they have been looked after in the past, that is, through the state and its well-paid officials. And people think they have taken quite an extraordinary bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap.

Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Frederick Engels

Seems clear here on the matter of recall and Engels not being a fan of the state as the end-game.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat/civ-war-intro.htm

1891 Introduction by Frederick Engels On the 20th Anniversary of the Paris Commune

From the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself,and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment. What had been the characteristic attribute of the former state? Society had created its own organs to look after its common interests, originally through simple division of labor. But these organs, at whose head was the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance of their own special interests, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society, as can be seen, for example, not only in the hereditary monarchy, but equally also in the democratic republic. Nowhere do "politicians" form a more separate, powerful section of the nation than in North America. There, each of the two great parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the separate states, or who make a living by carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are rewarded with positions.

It is well known that the Americans have been striving for 30 years to shake off this yoke, which has become intolerable, and that in spite of all they can do they continue to stink ever deeper in this swamp of corruption. It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. and nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends -- and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it.

Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society -- an inevitable transformation in all previous states -- the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts -- administrative, judicial, and educational -- by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were also added in profusion.

This shattering of the former state power and its replacement by a new and really democratic state is described in detail in the third section of The Civil War. But it was necessary to dwell briefly here once more on some of its features, because in Germany particularly the superstitious belief in the state has been carried over from philosophy into the general consciousness of the bourgeoisie and even to many workers. According to the philosophical notion, the state is the "realization of the idea" or the Kingdom of God on earth, translated into philosophical terms, the sphere in which eternal truth and justice is or should be realized. And from this follows a superstitious reverence for the state and everything connected with it, which takes roots the more readily as people from their childhood are accustomed to imagine that the affairs and interests common to the whole of society could not be looked after otherwise than as they have been looked after in the past, that is, through the state and its well-paid officials. And people think they have taken quite an extraordinary bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap.

Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Frederick Engels

Okay, good. There was no instance of this having happened, but it was part of the make-up. Now, where is it shown that no deputy to any of the soviets in the USSR could be recalled?

Oh hell, here is the article in the Soviet Constitution:

ARTICLE 78. The electors who have sent a deputy to the Soviet have the right to recall him at any time, and to hold new elections, in keeping with the general rules.

http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/18cons03.html

You are completely wrong. When BP and others were banned from those liberal sites it was for posting in the exact same way we have been posting here. It was the liberals on those sites who went crazy with the personal smears - just as you have. You are the one who got nasty personal - no one else did. And the same is true on those other sites, but you know this. If you think we want "hits" because of some kind of mental breakdown on line, you are mistaken. Eyeballs are good, but not just any eyeballs. If the lurkers are just looking for shit being slung, like monkeys in a cage, they can go elsewhere. And that includes everyone.

Nope...just did a little review. I ain't wrong on this Dhalgren. I voiced a few dissenting opinions on a few threads and it escalated with little personal passive-aggressive cheap shots from yourselves. I'm not want to back off in such cases being an insufferable asshole. It really escalated with charges of snitch, agent, and the rest on your parts. That's about all I'm gonna say on the matter. You can review the threads if you wish.

Okay, good. There was no instance of this having happened, but it was part of the make-up. Now, where is it shown that no deputy to any of the soviets in the USSR could be recalled?

Oh hell, here is the article in the Soviet Constitution:

ARTICLE 78. The electors who have sent a deputy to the Soviet have the right to recall him at any time, and to hold new elections, in keeping with the general rules.

http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/18cons03.html

Let's cover that later. For now I'm just throwing this out there. Anarchism being part of your OP. I'm not promoting this cat either way. He's a left communist and a Marxist. I'll let you guys tear into this and see where it leads :D

https://www.marxists.org/archive/rubel/1973/marx-anarchism.htm

Marx, theoretician of anarchism

--Maximilien Rubel 1973

Marx has been badly served by disciples who have succeeded neither in assessing the limits of his theory nor in determining its standards and field of application and has ended up by taking on the role of some mythical giant, a symbol of the omniscience and omnipotence of homo faber, maker of his own destiny.

The history of the School remains to be written, but at least we know how it came into being: Marxism, as the codification of a misunderstood and misinterpreted body of thought, was born and developed at a time when Marx’s work was not yet available in its entirely and when important parts of it remained unpublished. Thus, the triumph of Marxism as a State doctrine and Party ideology preceded by several decades the publication of the writings where Marx set out most clearly and completely the scientific basis and ethical purpose of his social theory. That great upheavals took place which invoked a body of thought whose major principles were unknown to the protagonists in the drama of history should have been enough to show that Marxism was the greatest, if not the most tragic, misunderstanding of the century. But at the same time this allows us to appreciate the significance of the theory held by Marx that it is not revolutionary ideas or moral principles which bring about changes in society, but rather human and material forces; that ideas and ideologies very often serve only to disguise the interest of the class in whose interests the upheavals take place. Political Marxism cannot appeal to Marx’s science and at the same time escape the critical analysis which that science uses to unmask the ideologies of power and exploitation.

Marxism as the ideology of a master class has succeeded in emptying the concepts of socialism and communism, as Marx and his forerunners understood them, of their original meaning and has replaced it with the picture of a reality which is its complete negation. Although closely linked to the other two, a third concept – anarchism – seems however to have escaped this fate of becoming a mystification. But while people know that Marx had very little sympathy for certain anarchists, it is not so generally known that despite this he still shared the anarchist ideal and objectives: the disappearance of the State. It is therefore pertinent to recall that in embracing the cause of working class emancipation, Marx started off in the anarchist tradition rather than in that of socialism or communism; and that, when finally he chose to call himself a “communist,” for him this term did not refer to one of the communist currents which then existed, but rather to a movement of thought and mode of action which had yet to be founded by gathering together all the revolutionary elements which had been inherited from existing doctrines and from the experience of past struggles.

In the reflections which follow we will try to show that, under the name communism, Marx developed a theory of anarchism; and further, that in fact it was he who was the first to provide a rational basis for the anarchist utopia and to put forward a project for achieving it. In view of the limited scope of the present essay we will only put this forward as an item for discussion. Proof by means of quotations will be reduced to a minimum so as to better bring out the central argument: Marx theoretician of anarchism.

I

When in Paris in February 1845, on the eve of his departure for exile in Brussels, Marx signed a contract with a German publisher he committed himself to supplying in a few months a work in two volumes entitled “A Critique of Politics and Political Economy” without suspecting that he had imposed on himself a task which would take up his while life and of which he would be able to carry out only a largish fragment.

The choice of subject was no accident. Having given up all hope of a university career, Marx had carried over into his political journalism the results of his philosophical studies. His articles in the Rheinische Zeitung of Cologne led the fight for freedom of the press in Prussia in the name of a liberty which he conceived of as the essence of Man and as the attire of human nature; but also in the name of a State understood as the realisation of rational freedom, as “the great organism, in which legal, moral, and political freedom must be realised, and in which the individual citizen in obeying the laws of the state only obeys the natural laws of his own reason, of human reason.”[1] But the Prussian censorship soon silenced the philosopher-journalist. Marx, in the solicitude of a study retreat, did not take long to ask himself about the real nature of the State and about the rational and ethical validity of Hegel’s political philosophy. We know what was the fruit of this meditation enriched by the study of the history of the bourgeois revolutions in France, Great Britain and the United States: apart from an incomplete and unpublished work, The Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of the State (1843), two polemical essays, Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and On the Jewish Question (Paris, 1844). These two writings in fact form a single manifesto in which Marx identifies once and for all and condemns unreservedly the social institutions – the State and Money – which he saw as at the origin of the evils and defects from which modern society suffered and would go on suffering until a new social revolution came to abolish them. At the same time Marx praised the force – the modern proletariat – which, after having been the main victim of these two institutions, was going to put an end to their reign as well as to every other form of class domination, political and economic. The self-emancipation of the proletariat would be the complete emancipation of humanity; after the total loss of humanity the total victory of the human.

In the intellectual development of Marx the rejection of the State and Money and the affirmation that the proletariat was a liberating class came before his studies of political economy; they preceded also his discovery of the materialist conception of history, the “guiding line” which directed his later historical researches. His break with Hegel’s philosophy of law and politics on the one hand and his critical study of bourgeois revolutions on the other allowed him to establish clearly the ethical postulates of his future social theory for which the scientific basis was to be provided by the critique of political economy. Having understood the revolutionary role of democracy and legislative power in the genesis of the bourgeois State and governmental power, Marx made use of the illuminating analysis of two shrewd observers of the revolutionary possibilities of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville and Thomas Hamilton, to lay down a rational basis for an anarchist utopia as the conscious aim of the revolutionary movement of the class which his master Saint Simon had called “the most numerous and most poor.” Since the critique of the State led him to envisage the possibility of a society free from all political authority, he had to go on to make a critique of the economic system which ensured the material basis of the State. The ethical rejection of money also implied an analysis of political economy, the science of the enrichment of some and of the impoverishment of others. Later he was to describe the research he was about to begin on the “anatomy of bourgeois society” and it was by engaging in this work of social anatomy that he was to work out his methodology. Later the rediscovery of the Hegelian dialectic would help him to establish the plan of the “Economy” under six “headings” or “books”: Capital, Landed Property, Wage Labour; The State, Foreign Trade, World Market (see Preface to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859). In fact, this double “triad” of items for research corresponds to the two problems which he had proposed to deal with fourteen years previously in the work which was to contain a critique of both political economy and politics. Marx began his work with the critical analysis of the capitalist mode of production, but he hoped to live and work long enough not only to complete this but also, once he had completed the first triad of headings, to begin on the second triad which would thus have found the Book on the State.[2] The theory of anarchism would thus have found in Marx its first recognised exponent without there being any need to prove this indirectly. The misunderstanding of the century of Marxism as an ideology of the State was the result of the fact that Marx never wrote this book. It was this which has allowed the masters of a State apparatus labelled socialist to include Marx among the proponents of State socialism or communism, indeed even of “authoritarian” socialism.

Certainly, like every revolutionary teaching, that of Marx is not free from ambiguities. It is by cleverly exploiting these ambiguities and by referring to certain personal attitudes of the master that some of his unscrupulous disciples have succeeded in putting his work at the service of doctrines and actions which represent, in relation to both its basic truth and its declared objective, its complete negation. At a time when many decades of regression in human relations have called into question all theories, values, systems and projects, it is important to gather together the intellectual heritage of an author who, aware of the limits of his research, made the call for critical self-education and revolutionary self-emancipation the permanent principle of the workers’ movement. It is not up to posterity burdened with overwhelming responsibilities to judge a man who can no longer plead his cause; but on the other hand it is our duty to take up a teaching which was completely oriented towards the future, a future which certainly became our catastrophic present but which mostly still remains to be created.

II

We repeat: the “Book” on the State, foreshadowed in the plan of the Economy but which remained unwritten, could only have contained the theory of society freed from the State, anarchist society. Although not directly intended for this work, the materials and works prepared or published by Marx in the course of his literary activity allow us both to put forward this hypothesis about the content of the planned work and to work out what its general structure would have been. While the first triad of headings was part of the critique of political economy, the second would have put forward essentially a critique of politics. Following on from the critique of capital, the critique of the State would have established what determined the political evolution of modern society, just as the purpose of Capital (followed by the Books on “Landed Property” and “Wage Labour”) was to “lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society” (cf. Preface to Capital, 1867). In the same way that the principles and postulates which motivated Marx when making his critique of capital are to be found in his published and unpublished writings prior to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), so we can extract from these writings those which would have guided him in developing his criticism of the State. It would however be a mistake to suppose that at this time Marx’s thought on the nature of politics was established in its final form, with no possibility of modifying details and closed to all theoretical enrichment. Quite the contrary. The problem of the State never ceased to concern Marx not only because he failed to keep the moral engagement to finish his master work, but above all because it was constantly kept in his mind by his participation and polemical confrontations after September 1864 within the International Workingmen’s Association and by political events, particularly the rivalry for leadership between France and Prussia on the one hand and Russia and Austria on the other. The Europe of the Treaty of Vienna had then become no more than a fiction, while two important social phenomena had made their appearance on the scene of history: movements for national liberation and the workers’ movement. The struggle between nations and the class struggle, which were difficult to reconcile from a purely conceptual point of view, were to raise problems of theory requiring decisions by Marx and Engels which could not but bring them into contradiction with their own revolutionary principles. Engels made a speciality of differentiating between peoples and nations according to how, in his eyes, they could or could not claim the historical right to national existence. Their sense of historical realities prevented the two friends from following Proudhon in the way of a federalism which, in the situation of the time, must have seemed both a pure abstraction and an impure utopia; but they risked falling into a nationalism which was incompatible with the universalism of the modern proletariat they had posited.

If Proudhon, by his federalist aspirations, seems to be nearer than Marx to the anarchist position, the picture changes when we consider Proudhon’s overall conception of the reforms which should lead to the abolition of capital and the State. The almost excessive praise of which Proudhon is the object in the Holy Family (1845) should not mislead us. From this time on there were deep theoretical differences between the two men; the praise had only been conceded to the French socialist with a very important reservation: Proudhon’s critique of property was implicit in the bourgeois economic system, but however valid it might be it did not call into question the social relations of the system which it criticised. Quite the contrary. In Proudhon’s doctrine, the economic categories, which were theoretical expressions of the institutions of capital, were all systematically preserved. Proudhon’s merit was to have revealed the inherent contradictions of economic science and to have shown the immorality of bourgeois morality and law; his weakness was to have accepted the categories and institutions of the capitalist economy and to have respected, in his programme of reforms and solutions, all the instruments of the bourgeois class and its political power: wages, credit, banks, exchange, price, value, profit, interest, taxes, competition, monopoly. After applying the dialectic of the negation in his analysis of the evolution of law and legal systems, he stopped half-way by not extending his critical method of the negation to the capitalist economy. Proudhon opened the way for such a criticism, but it was Marx who was to create this new method of criticism and to try to use it as a weapon in the struggle of labour against capital and the State.

Proudhon had made his critique of bourgeois economics and law in the name of bourgeois morality; Marx was to make his criticism in the name of proletarian ethics, whose standards of judgement were taken from quite a different vision of human society. To do this he only had to follow to its logical conclusion Proudhon’s – or rather Hegel’s – principle of negation: the Justice of which Proudhon dreamed could only be established by the negation of justice just as philosophy could only be put into practice by the negation of philosophy, i.e., by a social revolution which would at last allow humanity to become social and society to be become human. This would be the end of the pre-history of humanity and the beginning of individual life, the appearance of fully-developed Man, with all-round faculties, the coming of complete Man. Marx opposed the realist morality of Proudhon, which sought to save the “good side” of bourgeois institutions, with the ethic of a utopia whose demands would be measured by the possibilities offered by a science and technology sufficiently developed to provide for the needs of the race. Marx opposed an anarchism which respected the plurality of classes and social categories, which favoured the division of labour and which was hostile to the associationists proposed by the utopians, with an anarchism which rejected social classes and the division of labour, a communism which took over all in utopian socialism that could be achieved by a proletariat which was conscious of its emancipating role and which had become master of the forces of production. However, in spite of these divergent means – in particular, as we shall see, a different attitude towards political action – the two types of anarchism aimed at a common end which the Communist Manifesto defined in these terms:

“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

III

Marx refused to invent recipes for the cooking pots of the future, but he did better – or worse – than this: he wanted to show that historical necessity – like some blind fate – was leading humanity to a situation of crisis where it would face a decisive dilemma: to be destroyed by its own technical inventions or to survive thanks to a leap in consciousness which would allow it to break with all the forms of alienation and servitude which had marked the stages of its history. Only this dilemma was fated, the actual choice would be left to the social class which had every reason to reject the existing order and to establish a fundamentally different mode of existence. The modern proletariat was potentially the material and moral force that was capable of taking up this universally significant task of salvation. However this potential force could not become real until the bourgeois period had been completed. For the bourgeoisie too had a historical role to play. If it had not always been conscious of this, then its apologists had had the task of reminding it of its civilising role. In creating the world in its image, the bourgeoisie of the industrially developed countries embourgeoisified and proletarianised the societies which progressively fell under its political and economic control. Seen from the viewpoint of proletarian interests, these instruments of conquest, capital and the State, were just means of servitude and suppression, but when the relations of capitalist production and therefore of capitalist States had been firmly established on a world scale, then the internal contradictions of the world market would reveal the limits of capital accumulation and provoke a state of permanent crisis which would endanger the foundations of the enslaved societies and threaten the very survival of the human race. The hour of the proletarian revolution would sound the world over.

By extrapolating reasonably we have been able to see the logical conclusions of the dialectical method employed by Marx in laying bare the economic law of movement of modern society. We could back up this view with textual references beginning with the remarks on methodology which can be gleaned from many of Marx’s writings dating from different periods. It is no less true that the hypothesis which Marx most frequently offers us in his political works is that of the proletarian revolution in the countries which have known a long period of bourgeois civilization and capitalist economy; such a revolution would mark the beginning of a process of development which would gradually involve the rest of the world, historical progress being hastened through the revolution being contagious. But whatever the hypothesis Marx had in mind, one thing is clear: his social theory had no place for a third revolutionary way where countries which lacked the historical experience of developed capitalism and bourgeois democracy would show the way to proletarian revolution to countries which had had a long capitalist and bourgeois past.

We recall with particular insistence these elementary truths of the conception of history called materialist because the Marxist mythology born with the 1917 Russian revolution has succeeded in imposing on the uniformed – and they were legion – another view of the process of this revolution: humanity divided into two economic and political systems, the capitalist world dominated by the industrially developed countries and the socialist world the model for which, the USSR, had reached the rank of second world power following a “proletarian” revolution. In fact, the industrialisation of Russia has been due to the creation and exploitation of an immense proletariat and not to its triumph and abolition. The fiction of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” forms part of the arsenal of ideas which the new masters have imposed in the interests of their own power: six decades of nationalist and military barbarism on a world scale explain the mental confusion of an intelligentsia which has been completely misled by the myth of “socialist October.” [3]

Since we cannot deepen the discussion here we will restrict ourselves to expressing our point of view in the form of an alternative: either the materialist theory of social development has some scientific validity – Marx himself was naturally persuaded of this – and in this case the “socialist” world is a myth or the socialist world really exists and the materialist theory of social development is completely and totally invalidated. On the first hypothesis the myth of the socialist world is perfectly explained: it would be the fruit of a well-organised ideological campaign by the “first workers’ State” aimed at disguising its real nature. On the second hypothesis the materialist theory of how the world would become socialist would certainly be disproved, but the ethical and utopian demands of Marx’s teaching would have been achieved; in other words, refuted by history as a man of science, Marx would have triumphed as a revolutionary.

The myth of “really existing socialism” has been constructed in order to morally justify one of the most powerful forms of dominating and exploitative society that history had known. The problem of the nature of this society has completely confused those most informed about the theories, doctrines and ideas which together form the intellectual heritage of socialism, communism and anarchism. Of these three schools – or currents – of the movement of ideas which seeks a fundamental change in human society, anarchism has suffered the least from this perversion. Not having created a real theory of revolutionary practice, it has been able to preserve itself from the political and ideological corruption which has struck the two other schools of thought. Originating from dreams and longings for the past as well as from rejection and revolt, anarchism was formed as a radical criticism of the principle of authority in all its forms, and it is above all as such that it was incorporated into the materialist conception of history. This latter is essentially the view that the historical evolution of humanity passes by progressive stages from a permanent state of social antagonism to a mode of existence based on social harmony and individual development. The common aim of pre-Marxian radical and revolutionary doctrines became an integral part of Marx’s anarchist communism just as the social criticism transmitted by the anarchist utopia had. With Marx, utopian anarchism was enriched by a new dimension, that of the dialectical understanding of the workers’ movement as an ethical self-liberation embracing the whole of humanity. The dialectical element in a theory claiming to be scientific, indeed naturalistic, caused an intellectual strain which was inevitably the source of the fundamental ambiguity with which Marx’s teaching and activity is indelibly marked. Marx, who was a militant as well as a theorist, did not always seek to harmonise in his political activity the ends and means of anarchist communism. But the fact that he failed as a militant does not mean that he therefore ceased to be the theoretician of anarchism . It is thus right to apply to his own theory the ethical thesis which he formulated with regard to Feuerbach’s materialism (1845):

“The question whether human thinking can pretend to objective truth is not a theoretical but a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e. the reality and power, the ‘this-sideness’ of his thinking in practice” . [4]
IV

The negation of the State and capitalism by the most numerous and most poor class appears in Marx as an ethical imperative before he demonstrated dialectically that it was a historical necessity. In its first form, in Marx’s critical assessment of the French Revolution, it represented a decisive choice to be made: the objective which according to Marx humanity should strive to achieve. This objective was precisely human emancipation by going beyond political emancipation. The freest political State – of which the Unites States of America provided the only example – made Man a slave because it intervened as mediator between Man and his freedom, just like the Christ in whom the religious person vests his own divinity. Man when politically emancipated still only had an imaginary sovereignty. As a sovereign being enjoying the Rights of Man he led a double existence: that of a citizen of the political community and that of an individual member of society; that of a heavenly and that of an earthly being. As a citizen he was free and sovereign in the skies of politics, that universal kingdom of equality. As an individual he was degraded in his real life, bourgeois life, and reduced to the level of a means for his neighbour; he was the plaything of alien forces, material and moral, such as the institutions of private property, culture, religion, etc. Bourgeois society separated from the political State was the realm of egoism, of the war of each against all, of the separation of man from man. Political democracy had not freed Man from religion by ensuring his religious liberty, any more than it freed him from property in guaranteeing him the right to property. Similarly when it granted everyone the freedom to choose his occupation political democracy maintained occupational slavery and egoism. Bourgeois society was the world of trafficking and profiting, the reign of money, the universal power which had subjected politics and hence the State.

Such, in summary, was Marx’s initial thesis. It was a critique of the State and capital and it belonged to anarchist thought rather than to any socialism or communism. There was not yet anything scientific about it, but it implicitly appealed to and based itself on an ethical conception of the destiny of humanity in that it insisted on the need of doing something within the framework of historical time. This is why he did not just make a critique of political emancipation – that it reduced man to being an egoistic monad and an abstract citizen – but put forward both the end to be achieved and the means of achieving it:

“Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his “own powers” as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.” [5]

Marx developed his own theory by starting from the Social Contract of Rousseau, the theoretician of the abstract citizen and precursor of Hegel. Rejecting only partially the political alienation which these two thinkers proposed, he arrived at the vision of a human and social emancipation that would re-establish the individual as a complete being with fully developed faculties. This rejection was only partial because this state of political alienation, as a fact of history, could not be abolished by an act of will. Political emancipation was “a great progress,” it was even the last form of human emancipation within the established order, and it is as such that it could serve as a means to overthrow this order and inaugurate the stage of real human emancipation. The means and the end were dialectical opposites but were reconciled ethically in the consciousness of the modern proletariat which thus became the bearer and historical subject of the revolution. The proletariat, as a class in which were concentrated all the evils and which embodied the well-known crimes of all society, possessed a universal character as a result of its universal poverty. It could not emancipate itself without emancipating all spheres of society, and it was by putting into practice the demands of this ethic of emancipation that it would abolish itself as a proletariat.

Where Marx speaks of philosophy as the “head” and intellectual arm of the human emancipation of which the proletariat would be the “heart,” we prefer to speak of an ethic in order to show that it is not a question of metaphysical speculation but a problem of existence: people should not interpret a caricature of the world but should change it by giving it a human face. No speculative philosophy had any solution to offer Man for his problems of existence. This was why Marx, when he made the revolution a categorical imperative, reasoned from a normative ethic and not from a philosophy of history or a sociological theory. Because he could not and did not want to limit himself to a purely ethical demand for the regeneration of humanity and society Marx’s interest was then aroused by one particular science: the science of the production of the means of existence according to the law of capital.

Marx thus undertook the study of political economy as a means of struggling for the cause to which from that time on he was to devote his whole declassé “bourgeois” existence. What till then had only been a visionary institution and an ethical choice was to become a theory of economic development and a study of what determined societies. But it was also to be active participation in the social movement whose task was to put into practice the ethical demands which derived from the conditions of existence of the modern proletariat. Both the vision of a society without State, without classes, without monetary exchange, without religious and intellectual fears and the analysis which revealed the process of evolution that would lead by successive steps to forms of anarchist and communist society implied a theoretical critique of the capitalist mode of production. Marx was to write later:

“Even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement . . . it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth-pangs.” ( Preface to Capital, Volume I)

In short, Marx set out to demonstrate scientifically what he was already persuaded of intuitively and what appeared to him to be ethically necessary. It was in his first attempt at a critique of political economy that he came to analyse capital from a sociological point of view as the power to command labour and its products, a power which the capitalist possessed not by virtue of his personal or human qualities but as the owner of property. The wages system was a form of slavery; any authoritarian raising of wages would only mean better rations for the slaves:

“Even the equality of wages, which Proudhon demands, would merely transform the relation of the present-day worker to his work into the relation of all men to work. Society would then be conceived as an abstract capitalist.” [6]

Economic slavery and political servitude went together. Political emancipation, i.e., the recognition of the Rights of Man by the modern State, had the same significance as the recognition of slavery by the State of antiquity (The Holy Family, 1845). The worker was a slave to his paid occupation and also to his own egoistic needs experienced as alien needs. People were just as much subject to political servitude in the democratic representative State as in a constitutional monarchy. “In the modern world, everybody is at the same time a slave and a member of the community,” although the servitude of bourgeois society takes the form of the maximum of freedom (ibid.). Property, industry and religion, which are generally regarded as guarantees of individual liberty, were in fact institutions which sanctified this state of servitude. Robespierre, Saint-Just and their partisans failed because they did not distinguish antiquity based on real slavery from the modern representative State based on emancipated slavery, i.e., bourgeois society with its universal competition, its unbridled private interests and its alienated individualism. Napoleon, who understood perfectly the nature of the modern State and modern society, considered the State as an end in itself and bourgeois society as the instrument of his political ambitions. To satisfy the egoism of the French nation, he instituted permanent war in place of permanent revolution. His defeat confirmed the victory of the liberal bourgeoisie which in 1830 was finally able to make its dreams of 1789 become true: to make the constitutional representative State the social expression of its monopoly of power and sectional interests.

Marx, as a permanent observer of both the political evolution and economic development of French society, was constantly concerned with the problem of Bonapartism. [7] He considered that the French Revolution was the classic period of the political idea and that the Bonapartist tradition was a constant of the internal and external politics of France. He also outlined a theory of modern Caesarism which, even if it seemed to contradict in part the methodological principles of his theory of the State, did not modify his initial anarchist vision. For at the very time he was getting ready to set out the basic principles of his materialist conception of history he had formulated the following conception of the State which places him amongst the most radical anarchism:

“The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery ... The more powerful a state and hence the more political a nation, the less inclined it is to explain the general principle governing social ills and to seek out their causes by looking at the principle of the state – i.e., at the actual organization of society of which the state is the active, self-conscious and official expression.” [8]

The example of the French Revolution seemed to him at that time to be sufficiently convincing to make him put forward a view which only corresponded in part to the political sociology which he was soon to set out in the German Ideology, but which can be found much later in his reflections on the Second Empire and the 1871 Commune.

“Far from identifying the principle of the state as the source of social ills, the heroes of the French Revolution held social ills to be the source of political problems. Thus Robespierre regarded great wealth and great poverty as an obstacle to pure democracy. He therefore wished to establish a universal system of Spartan frugality. The principle of politics is the will.” [9]

When twenty-seven years later in connexion with the Paris Commune Marx was to return to the historical origins of the political absolutism which the Bonapartist State represented, he was to see in the centralisation carried out by the French Revolution the continuation of the traditions of the monarchy:

“The centralized State machinery which, with its ubiquitous and complicated military, bureaucratic, clerical and judiciary organs, entoils (enmeshes) the living civil society like a boa constrictor, was first forged in the days of absolute monarchy as a weapon of nascent modern society in its struggle of emancipation from feudalism ... The first French Revolution with its task to found national unity (to create a nation) . . . was, therefore, forced to develop, what absolute monarchy had commenced, the centralization and organization of State power, and to expand the circumference and the attributes of the State power, the number of its tools, its independence, and its supernaturalist sway of real society . . . Every minor solitary interest engendered by the relations of social groups was separated from society itself, fixed and made independent of it and opposed to it in the form of State interest, administered by State priests with exactly determined hierarchical functions.” [10]

This passionate denunciation of the power of the State in some way sums up all the work of study and critical reflection which Marx carried out in this field: his confrontation with the moral and political philosophy of Hegel; the period during which he worked out the materialist conception of history; his fifteen years of political and professional journalism; and, not to be forgotten, his intense activity within the International Workingmen’s Association. The Commune seems to have given Marx the opportunity to put the finishing touches to his thoughts on the problem for which he had reserved one of the six books of his Economy and to give a picture, if only in outline, of that free association of free men whose coming had been announced by the Communist Manifesto.

“This was, therefore, a revolution not against this or that, legitimate, constitutional, republican or imperialist form of State power. It was a revolution against the State itself, of this supernaturalist abortion of society, a resumption by the people for the people of its own social life.” [11]

V

Comparing how the serfs had been emancipated from the feudal regime with the emancipation of the modern working class, Marx noted that, unlike the proletarians, the serfs had to struggle to allow existing social conditions to develop freely and as a result could only arrive at “free labour.” The proletarians, on the other hand, had, in order to affirm themselves as individuals, to abolish their own social condition; since this was the same as that of the whole of society, they had to abolish wage labour. And he added this sentence which from then on was to serve as the theme of both his literary work and his activity as a communist militant:

“Thus they [the proletarians] find themselves directly opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State.” [12]

This view, which was nearer to the anarchism of Bakunin than to that of Proudhon, was not uttered in the heat of the moment nor was it the rhetoric of a politician haranguing a workers’ meeting. It was the logical conclusion, expressed as a revolutionary demand, of the whole development of a theory whose purpose was to demonstrate the “historical necessity” of the anarchist commune. In other words, in Marx’s theory, the coming of “human society” was seen as the outcome of a long historical process. Eventually, a social class would arise which would comprise the immense majority of the population of industrial society and which as such would be capable of carrying out a creative revolutionary task. It was to show the logic of this development that Marx sought to establish a causal link between scientific progress – above all that of the natural sciences – and, on the one hand, political and legal institutions and, on the other, the behaviour of antagonistic social classes. Unlike Engels, Marx did not consider that the future revolutionary transformation would take place in the same way as past revolutions, like a cataclysm of Nature crushing men, things and consciousness. With the coming of the modern working class, the human race began the cycle of its real history; it entered on the way of reason and became capable of making its dreams come true and of giving itself a destiny in accordance with its creative faculties. The conquests of science and technology made such an outcome possible, but the proletariat had to intervene in order to prevent the bourgeoisie and capital from changing this evolution into a march into the abyss:

“The victories of art seem bought by the loss of character. At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy.” [13]

So the proletarian revolution would not be a political adventure; it would be a universal act, carried out consciously by the immense majority of the members of society after they had become conscious of the necessity and the possibility of the total regeneration of humanity. As history had become world history the threat of enslavement by capital and its market extended all over the Earth. As a consequence there had to arise a mass consciousness and will fully oriented towards a fundamental and complete change of human relationships and social institutions. So long as people’s survival is threatened by the danger of a barbarism of planetary dimensions, the communist and anarchist dreams and utopias represent the intellectual source of rational projects and practical reforms which can give the human race the taste of a life according to the standards of a reason and an imagination both oriented towards renewing the destiny of humanity.

There is no leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom, as Engels thought, and there cannot be a direct transition from capitalism to anarchism. The economic and social barbarism brought about by the capitalist mode of production cannot be abolished by a political revolution prepared, organised and led by an elite of professional revolutionaries claiming to act and think in the name and for the benefit of the exploited and alienated majority. The proletariat, formed into a class and a party under the conditions of bourgeois democracy, liberates itself by struggling to conquer this democracy: it turns universal suffrage, which up till then had been “an instrument of deception,” into a means of emancipation. A class which comprises the immense majority of modern society only takes alienating political action in order to triumph over politics and only conquers State power to use it against the formerly dominant minority. The conquest of political power is by nature a “bourgeois” act; it only becomes a proletarian action by the revolutionary aim which the authors of this overthrow give to it. This is the meaning of the historical period which Marx was not afraid to call the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” precisely to differentiate it from a dictatorship exercised by an elite, dictatorship in the Jacobin and Blanquist sense of the term. Certainly, Marx, in claiming the merit of having discovered the secret of the historical development of modes of production and domination, could not have foreseen that his teaching would be usurped by professional revolutionaries and other politicians claiming the right to personify the dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact, he only envisaged this form of social transition for countries whose proletariat had been able to make use of the period of bourgeois democracy to create its own institutions and made itself the dominant class in society. Compared with the many centuries of violence and corruption that capitalism had needed to come to dominate the world, the length of the process of transition to anarchist society would be shorter and less violent to the extent that the concentration of political power would bring a mass proletariat face to face with a numerically weak bourgeoisie:

“The transformation of scattered private property, arising from individual labour, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process, incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult, than the transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically resting on socialized production, into socialized property. In the former case, we had the expropriation of the mass of the people by a few usurpers; in the latter, we have the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people.” [14]

Marx did not work out all the details of a theory of the transition; in fact noticeably different views can be found in the various theoretical and practical outlines which are scattered throughout his works. Nevertheless, throughout these differences, indeed contradictory statements, a basic principle remains intact and constant to the extent of allowing a coherent reconstruction of such a theory. It is perhaps on this point that the myth of the founding of “Marxism” by Marx and Engels is seen at its most harmful. While the former made the postulate of a proletarian self-activity the criterion of all genuine class action and all genuine conquest of political power, the latter ended up, particularly after the death of his friend, by separating the two elements in the creation of the workers’ movement: the class action – the Selbsttätigkeit – of the proletariat on the one hand and the policy of the party on the other. Marx thought that communist and anarchist self-education was, more than any isolated political act, an integral part of the revolutionary activity of the workers: it was the workers’ task to make themselves fit for the conquest and exercise of political power as a means of resisting attempts by the bourgeoisie to reconquer and recover its power. The proletariat had to temporarily and consciously form itself into a material force in order to defend its right and project to transform society by progressively establishing the Human Community. It was in struggling to affirm itself as a force of abolition and creation that the working class – which “of all the instruments of production is the most productive” – took up the dialectical project of creative negation; it took the risk of political alienation in order to make politics superfluous. Such a project had nothing in common with the destructive passion of a Bakunin or the anarchist apocalypse of a Coeurderoy. Revolutionary purism had no place in this political project whose aim was to make real the potential supremacy of the oppressed and exploited masses. Marx thought that the International Workingmen’s Association, which combined the power of numbers with a revolutionary spirit conceived of in a quite different way from Proudhonian anarchism, could become such a fighting organisation. In joining the IWMA, Marx did not abandon the position he had taken against Proudhon in 1847, when he put forward an anti-political anarchism to be achieved by a political movement:

“Does this mean that after the fall of the old society there will be a new class domination culminating in a new political power? No ... The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society. Meanwhile the antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is a struggle of class against class, a struggle which carried to its highest expression is a total revolution. Indeed, is it at all surprising that a society founded on the opposition of classes should culminate in brutal contradiction, the shock of body against body, as its final denouement? Do not say that social movement excludes political movement. There is never a political movement which is not at the same time social. It is only in an order of things in which there are no more classes and class antagonisms that social evolutions will cease to be political revolutions.” [15]

Marx’s point here is quite realistic and free from all idealism. This address to the future must be clearly understood to be the expression of a normative project committing the workers to behave as revolutionaries while struggling politically. “The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing” (letter to J.B. Schweitzer, 1865). This is the language of a thinker whose rigorous dialectic, in contrast to a Proudhon or a Stirner, rejects impressing people by the systematic use of gratuitous paradox and verbal violence. And while everything is not and cannot be settled by this demonstration of means and ends, its merit is at least to urge the victims of alienated labour to understand and educate themselves through undertaking together a great work of collective creation. In this sense, Marx’s appeal remains relevant, despite the triumph of Marxism and even because of it.

The limits of this essay do not allow us to go further in proving this. So we will limit ourselves to citing three texts which demolish in advance the legend – Bakuninist and Leninist – of a Marx “worshipper of the State” and “apostle of State communism” or of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the dictatorship of a party, indeed of a single man:

(a) “Marginal Notes on Bakunin’s book State and Anarchy (Geneva, 1873, in Russian).” Main themes: dictatorship of the proletariat and the maintenance of small peasant property; economic conditions and social revolution; disappearance of the State and the transformation of political functions into administrative functions of self-managed co-operative communes.

(b) Critique of the Programme of the German Workers Party (Gotha Programme) (1875). Main themes: the two phases of communist society based on the co-operative mode of production; the bourgeoisie as a revolutionary class; the international action of the working class; criticism of the “iron law of wages”; revolutionary role of workers’ productive co-operatives; primary education freed from the influence of religion and the State; revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat as a political transition to the transformation of State functions into social functions.

(c) The Peasant Commune and Revolutionary Perspectives in Russia (Reply to Vera Zasulitch)(1881). Main themes: the rural commune as an element of regeneration of Russian society; ambivalence of the commune and influence of historical background; development of the commune and the crisis of capitalism; peasant emancipation and taxation; negative influences and risks of disappearance of the commune; the Russian commune, threatened by the State and capital, will only be saved by the Russian revolution.

These three documents to some extent make up the essence of the book which Marx considered writing on the State.

It can be seen from these remarks that Marx expressly presented his social theory as an attempt at an objective analysis of a historical movement and not as a moral or political code of revolutionary practice aimed at establishing an ideal society; as the laying bare of a process of development involving things and individuals and not as a collection of rules for use by parties and elites seeking power. This, however, is only the external and declared aspect of a theory which has two conceptual tracks, one rigorously determined, the other freely making its way towards the visionary aim of an anarchist society:

“The social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot take its poetry from the past but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped away all superstition about the past.” [16]

The past is an unchangeable necessity; and the observer, equipped with all the instruments of analysis, is in a position to explain the series of phenomena which have been perceived. But while it is a vain hope that all the dreams which humanity, through its prophets and visionaries, has entertained will come true, the future could at least bring an end to the institutions which have reduced people’s lives to a permanent state of servitude in all social fields. This is, briefly, the link between theory and utopia in the teaching of Marx who expressly proclaimed himself an “anarchist” when he wrote:

“All socialists see anarchy as the following program: Once the aim of the proletarian movement – i.e., abolition of classes – is attained, the power of the state, which serves to keep the great majority of producers in bondage to a very small exploiter minority, disappears, and the functions of government become simple administrative functions.” [17]
Post Script [18]

The essay above does not take into account the ideas of Frederick Engels on the State and anarchism. Without entering into the details of his view, we can say that it does not completely coincide with that of Marx, although it too proposes the final disappearance of the State. The most important passages in this connection are to be found in Anti-Dühring (1877-8) which to some extent had Marx’s imprimatur. Engels here sees the conquest of State power and the transformation of the means of production into State property as the self-abolition of the proletariat and the abolition of class antagonisms, indeed of “the suppression of the State as State.” Further on he describes this “abolition” of the State as “a dying out” of the State: “Der Staat wird nicht ‘abgeschafft’, er stirbt ab.” After Marx’s death, drawing his inspiration from the notes left by his friend on Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society, Engels again dealt with the subject but in a wider socio-historical context. The highest form of the State, the democratic republic, is considered by Engels as the final phase of politics during which the decisive struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat will take place; the exploited class becomes ready for self-emancipation and forms itself into an independent party: “universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class” – and that suffices to do away with capitalism and the State, and hence with class society. “Along with them [i.e., classes] the State will inevitably fall. The society ... will put the whole of the machinery of State where it will then belong: into the Museum of Antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.” [19] See also Engels’s letters to Philip Van Patten of 18 April 1883 and to Edward Bernstein of 28 January 1884. In the latter Engels quotes some passages from the Poverty of Philosophy (1847) and the Communist Manifesto (1848) to prove “that we proclaimed the end ["Aufhören"] of the State before there were really any anarchists.” Engels undoubtedly exaggerated – a mention only of William Godwin would invalidate this view, without referring to the others who were won over to anarchism through reading Political Justice (1793).

Nope...just did a little review. I ain't wrong on this Dhalgren. I voiced a few dissenting opinions on a few threads and it escalated with little personal passive-aggressive cheap shots from yourselves. I'm not want to back off in such cases being an insufferable asshole. It really escalated with charges of snitch, agent, and the rest on your parts. That's about all I'm gonna say on the matter. You can review the threads if you wish.

The snitch stuff was way late in your assault -so don't go there. What got you set off was me and BP suggesting that we didn't care to ally with liberals, you went berserk because you said that was not what you were suggesting. Yet, it is what it sounded like, to us. That is when you started going ape-shit. No one had personally attacked you, at all. We attacked the ideas we thought you were proffering. Re-reading those posts, it still strikes me as advocating working with liberal/progressives - sorry, it just does. You may have thought that we were being "passive aggressive", but we were not. If you had read as much here as you say, you should probably know that. I will drop this whole issue, if you want to. Fighting with posters on personal issues is not only the most boring thing in the world, it is also the least productive.
No one here cares anything about your "credentials", or your posting history, or your voting history or how many times you have been arrested. If you can contribute to the goal of the board - achieving a better level of understanding of material conditions - then welcome and get to work.

The snitch stuff was way late in your assault -so don't go there. What got you set off was me and BP suggesting that we didn't care to ally with liberals, you went berserk because you said that was not what you were suggesting. Yet, it is what it sounded like, to us. That is when you started going ape-shit. No one had personally attacked you, at all. We attacked the ideas we thought you were proffering. Re-reading those posts, it still strikes me as advocating working with liberal/progressives - sorry, it just does. You may have thought that we were being "passive aggressive", but we were not. If you had read as much here as you say, you should probably know that. I will drop this whole issue, if you want to. Fighting with posters on personal issues is not only the most boring thing in the world, it is also the least productive.
No one here cares anything about your "credentials", or your posting history, or your voting history or how many times you have been arrested. If you can contribute to the goal of the board - achieving a better level of understanding of material conditions - then welcome and get to work.

Well...I'm not really a dedicated Marxist and not really a materialist Dhalgren but I've never taken up the mantle of liberalism as any way forward. That's pretty much documented anywhere I post. I can't stress enough that it's a class war and fighting for the workers over the owners and labor over capital in whatever form that takes is what it's about. I've not ever said otherwise despite these major disagreements that have come to pass. Yep...lets drop it and I will turn the volume down a few levels. I've never been a bastion of civility when posting anywhere Dhalgren so what can I say. I've also never mentioned anything about arrest records :D

Well...I'm not really a dedicated Marxist and not really a materialist Dhalgren but I've never taken up the mantle of liberalism as any way forward. That's pretty much documented anywhere I post. I can't stress enough that it's a class war and fighting for the workers over the owners and labor over capital in whatever form that takes is what it's about. I've not ever said otherwise despite these major disagreements that have come to pass. Yep...lets drop it and I will turn the volume down a few levels. I've never been a bastion of civility when posting anywhere Dhalgren so what can I say. I've also never mentioned anything about arrest records :D

We have three bones of contention which are irresolvable, the vanguard party, the dictatorship of the proletariat and 'real, existing socialism'. I think I can speak for at least some of us that these first two are absolutely necessary to the execution, preservation and advancement of revolution. The third is a matter of record, the slanders of fascists not withstanding. You can post out of context quotes of ME&L til' the cows come home(along with some of that questionable material you've presented).

Here's the thing about those 'anarchists', Marx & Lenin, those smart cookies knew when to be anarchists and when to be authoritarians, cause it's a false dichotomy. Practical men, ya do what ya gotta, a new world is not created out of whole cloth. Making a revolution is easy compared to making a revolution work, and we must make it work and got no time for frivolity.

We have three bones of contention which are irresolvable, the vanguard party, the dictatorship of the proletariat and 'real, existing socialism'. I think I can speak for at least some of us that these first two are absolutely necessary to the execution, preservation and advancement of revolution. The third is a matter of record, the slanders of fascists not withstanding. You can post out of context quotes of ME&L til' the cows come home(along with some of that questionable material you've presented).

Here's the thing about those 'anarchists', Marx & Lenin, those smart cookies knew when to be anarchists and when to be authoritarians, cause it's a false dichotomy. Practical men, ya do what ya gotta, a new world is not created out of whole cloth. Making a revolution is easy compared to making a revolution work, and we must make it work and got no time for frivolity.

There is no bone of contention on the working class taking power. None whatsoever. The bone of contention on the vanguard and existing socialism is that both constructs assume the workers are stupid, unable to rise above a certain level of class consciousness, and unable to lead, organize, and maintain the charge under a workers democracy.

There is no bone of contention on the working class taking power. None whatsoever. The bone of contention on the vanguard and existing socialism is that both constructs assume the workers are stupid, unable to rise above a certain level of class consciousness, and unable to lead, organize, and maintain the charge under a workers democracy.

And, unfortunately, your view holds that workers cannot form a vanguard party and organize themselves in a completely class conscious way and lead themselves in a party structure in a workers' democracy. The idea that if workers form a party and work through that party they will be too stupid or weak to maintain control in also insulting. On top of all that, there is not a shred of creditable evidence to support the view that the various historical expressions of revolutionary socialism was anything other than worker organized, worker controlled, and worker lead. Because someone, somewhere SAID that it was so, does not make it so. On our side of the issue we have documented history and decades of evidence of support, on your side you have Nazi smears, capitalist propaganda, and disgruntled, asshurt sore-losers.

This should probably be the end of this particular discussion. Because you got nothing, and it is an issue we will not turn loose of.

And, unfortunately, your view holds that workers cannot form a vanguard party and organize themselves in a completely class conscious way and lead themselves in a party structure in a workers' democracy. The idea that if workers form a party and work through that party they will be too stupid or weak to maintain control in also insulting. On top of all that, there is not a shred of creditable evidence to support the view that the various historical expressions of revolutionary socialism was anything other than worker organized, worker controlled, and worker lead. Because someone, somewhere SAID that it was so, does not make it so. On our side of the issue we have documented history and decades of evidence of support, on your side you have Nazi smears, capitalist propaganda, and disgruntled, asshurt sore-losers.

This should probably be the end of this particular discussion. Because you got nothing, and it is an issue we will not turn loose of.

Delving into this much further from several different angles should be done. Your responses of this being about "Nazi smears" and capitalist propaganda is not at all conducive to you defending the position you're taking in a rational and materialist way. It's laughable Dhal. The position you are defending is a minority position on the anti-capitalist left. It's also not at all clear that the position you are defending is supported by documented evidence and historical fact a you claim. The Marxist/Leninist school of the vanguard as savior claiming it so doesn't make it so. It is more the subjective thought processes and idealism of the Marxist/Leninist faction of the anti-capitalist left.

There is also no insulting on my part Dhal. This is elementary. Lenin himself made the claim that the workers could not rise above "trade-union consciousness" and that true class consciousness could not come from within but must be injected by the intellectual vanguard ("advanced workers") from without. Lenin's upper middle-class intellectual elitism was clearly showing though. I've not made any such claims.

Delving into this much further from several different angles should be done. Your responses of this being about "Nazi smears" and capitalist propaganda is not at all conducive to you defending the position you're taking in a rational and materialist way. It's laughable Dhal. The position you are defending is a minority position on the anti-capitalist left. It's also not at all clear that the position you are defending is supported by documented evidence and historical fact a you claim. The Marxist/Leninist school of the vanguard as savior claiming it so doesn't make it so. It is more the subjective thought processes and idealism of the Marxist/Leninist faction of the anti-capitalist left.

There is also no insulting on my part Dhal. This is elementary. Lenin himself made the claim that the workers could not rise above "trade-union consciousness" and that true class consciousness could not come from within but must be injected by the intellectual vanguard ("advanced workers") from without. Lenin's upper middle-class intellectual elitism was clearly showing though. I've not made any such claims.

This is wrong on every count. Lenin says that the purely economic struggle can't rise above trade unionism just as the serf was not positioned to abolish feudal society. Thus, Lenin says that the POLITICAL arena is where consciousness is born, bred, fostered, and matures.

The vanguard party is comprised of the most class conscious workers united together for the singular purpose of social revolution. This not overturn the fact that "the communists have no interests other than those of the workers".

As for Stalin(ism) -- again, intentions don't play into this. The capitalist "narrative" eerily mirrors Nazi propaganda..including in its nasty tone.

Delving into this much further from several different angles should be done. Your responses of this being about "Nazi smears" and capitalist propaganda is not at all conducive to you defending the position you're taking in a rational and materialist way. It's laughable Dhal. The position you are defending is a minority position on the anti-capitalist left. It's also not at all clear that the position you are defending is supported by documented evidence and historical fact a you claim. The Marxist/Leninist school of the vanguard as savior claiming it so doesn't make it so. It is more the subjective thought processes and idealism of the Marxist/Leninist faction of the anti-capitalist left.

There is also no insulting on my part Dhal. This is elementary. Lenin himself made the claim that the workers could not rise above "trade-union consciousness" and that true class consciousness could not come from within but must be injected by the intellectual vanguard ("advanced workers") from without. Lenin's upper middle-class intellectual elitism was clearly showing though. I've not made any such claims.

So it's a popularity contest, eh? Mebbe somebody shudda told Lenin in 1916. That our people are afflicted by the most comprehensive propaganda in history only means more work and in no way negates the soundness of our position.

Yes, the historical record is plain for anyone willing to look behind the anti-communist hysterics of Nazis and hirlings like Conquest, which are utterly destroyed by logic and math.

But you would have us abandon what is know to work in pursuit of idealist objectives, do show me those successful anarchist revolutions.The phrase, "You can't be serious." comes to mind.

This is wrong on every count. Lenin says that the purely economic struggle can't rise above trade unionism just as the serf was not positioned to abolish feudal society. Thus, Lenin says that the POLITICAL arena is where consciousness is born, bred, fostered, and matures.

The vanguard party is comprised of the most class conscious workers united together for the singular purpose of social revolution. This not overturn the fact that "the communists have no interests other than those of the workers".

As for Stalin(ism) -- again, intentions don't play into this. The capitalist "narrative" eerily mirrors Nazi propaganda..including in its nasty tone.

You are naturally going to stake the claim that this is wrong Kid to defend the position (understandable) but the fact remains that Lenin's polemics and writing are subject to interpretation as are Marx and Engels. Surely interpretations from other leftist factions that are far from Nazi or Capitalist. I would like to have you cats look at some of those and address them without outrageously labeling everything that runs counter as the propaganda of Nazis and Capitalists.

So it's a popularity contest, eh? Mebbe somebody shudda told Lenin in 1916. That our people are afflicted by the most comprehensive propaganda in history only means more work and in no way negates the soundness of our position.

Yes, the historical record is plain for anyone willing to look behind the anti-communist hysterics of Nazis and hirlings like Conquest, which are utterly destroyed by logic and math.

But you would have us abandon what is know to work in pursuit of idealist objectives, do show me those successful anarchist revolutions.The phrase, "You can't be serious." comes to mind.

You'll have to stop with this labeling of everything that runs counter - as the work of Nazis and capitalist propagandist assholes like Conquest - if any worthwhile discussion is to be had. There isn't much possibility of fleshing anything out under such conditions.

You'll have to stop with this labeling of everything that runs counter - as the work of Nazis and capitalist propagandist assholes like Conquest - if any worthwhile discussion is to be had. There isn't much possibility of fleshing anything out under such conditions.

I 'have' to do no such thing, should I deny the truth so that I may converse with you? Don't think so. And yes, the really big lies originated with the Nazis.

Now who's getting 'authoritarian'? (what silly bullshit)

I 'have' to do no such thing, should I deny the truth so that I may converse with you? Don't think so. And yes, the really big lies originated with the Nazis.

Now who's getting 'authoritarian'? (what silly bullshit)

Well... it is your joint and your property so you obviously have your rights :D


Critique and analysis of the vanguard, Lenin, the revolution and the rest comes from many more angles than the Nazis. You're better than that BP and far more intelligent than to be indulging in such nonsense.

Well... it is your joint and your property so you obviously have your rights :D


Critique and analysis of the vanguard, Lenin, the revolution and the rest comes from many more angles than the Nazis. You're better than that BP and far more intelligent than to be indulging in such nonsense.

Yeah, ya also get it from capitalists and idealists. And please cut the familiarity, don't know you from jackshit, I guess.

You'll have to stop with this labeling of everything that runs counter - as the work of Nazis and capitalist propagandist assholes like Conquest - if any worthwhile discussion is to be had. There isn't much possibility of fleshing anything out under such conditions.

Right. You are bested. Move on to something you might be able to defend. Or do you have nothing else to contribute? Are you a one trick pony? Don't you have any other disruptive crap in your kitbag? This is becoming quite the bore.

"No Tommy, the Sun does not revolve around the earth. Yes, we all know it looks like it does, but it does not, the earth revolves around the sun and there is much science to prove it. Yes, you can "see" with your own eyes, but it does not make it so."

So, come on matey, what else ya got?

Yeah, ya also get it from capitalists and idealists. And please cut the familiarity, don't know you from jackshit, I guess.

Well...you did mention in a previous comment I read here that you thought you might be suffering from some form of subtle retardation. I felt the need to defend your honor from that kind of self-immolation :D

Is it possible that a discussion might break out rather than this back and forth nonsense BP ? Who is feeding the fire again ?

Well...you did mention in a previous comment I read here that you thought you might be suffering from some form of subtle retardation. I felt the need to defend your honor from that kind of self-immolation :D

Is it possible that a discussion might break out rather than this back and forth nonsense BP ? Who is feeding the fire again ?

We've already had some discussion. You said the commune had recall and Soviets did not. You showed where the commune had it, I showed where the Soviets had it - you were wrong. This could go on and on. The Soviet archives are open and most of it is available to research. When I said we had history and you had nothing, I can go to the archives (and many have) to show you proof and evidence - the same for Cuba, Vietnam, and most of former communist Europe. All you got is propaganda, most of which was started by the Nazis and the rest foisted by the US right wing government. So you want to defend your smears, show evidence, show proof. The only claim I am making right now, is I don't believe you. If you can't show it, you don't know it.

Right. You are bested. Move on to something you might be able to defend. Or do you have nothing else to contribute? Are you a one trick pony? Don't you have any other disruptive crap in your kitbag? This is becoming quite the bore.

"No Tommy, the Sun does not revolve around the earth. Yes, we all know it looks like it does, but it does not, the earth revolves around the sun and there is much science to prove it. Yes, you can "see" with your own eyes, but it does not make it so."

So, come on matey, what else ya got?


There isn't a left communist, a half dozen factions of socialists, a left-anarchist, that would consider that I have been bested in this thread :D On the contrary... it is reinforcement that bitter sectarianism is the death knell of the formation of any leftist movement that could possibly guide the workers in the struggle.

There isn't a left communist, a half dozen factions of socialists, a left-anarchist, that would consider that I have been bested in this thread :D On the contrary... it is reinforcement that bitter sectarianism is the death knell of the formation of any leftist movement that could possibly guide the workers in the struggle.

This is assuming we are on the same side. I don't believe you.

We've already had some discussion. You said the commune had recall and Soviets did not. You showed where the commune had it, I showed where the Soviets had it - you were wrong. This could go on and on. The Soviet archives are open and most of it is available to research. When I said we had history and you had nothing, I can go to the archives (and many have) to show you proof and evidence - the same for Cuba, Vietnam, and most of former communist Europe. All you got is propaganda, most of which was started by the Nazis and the rest foisted by the US right wing government. So you want to defend your smears, show evidence, show proof. The only claim I am making right now, is I don't believe you. If you can't show it, you don't know it.

More to come Dhalgren. I really should get down to posting some of those views rather than feeding the nonsense...

Well...you did mention in a previous comment I read here that you thought you might be suffering from some form of subtle retardation. I felt the need to defend your honor from that kind of self-immolation :D

Is it possible that a discussion might break out rather than this back and forth nonsense BP ? Who is feeding the fire again ?

Perhaps that's because I do not think you have anything relevant to say. Your entire act is 'Authority Bad!", I say it is utterly necessary to preserve and advance revolution. My position is backed by history, yours by wishful thinking, and is furthermore a distraction from getting anything done. This conversation is at an impasse and is pointless.

This is assuming we are on the same side. I don't believe you.

What you "believe" is not my concern. I'm quite secure in where I stand in the struggle on the ground.

"I've never read Marx's Capital, but I've got the marks of capital all over my body."

--Bill Haywood

Perhaps that's because I do not think you have anything relevant to say. Your entire act is 'Authority Bad!", I say it is utterly necessary to preserve and advance revolution. My position is backed by history, yours by wishful thinking, and is furthermore a distraction from getting anything done. This conversation is at an impasse and is pointless.

Authority is very bad in the hands of capitalists and opportunists posing as friends of the workers. Your position is backed by nothing but subjective illusions in which not more than that of a sliver of the working class and the anti-capitalist left agrees with. That is objective reality.

Look, the only things that go around in circles perpetually are vultures. And even they land to feed on the carrion below.

Even if it were true that no one agreed with me/us, it doesn't matter. Not so long ago I didn't agree with me either..

Its irrelevant and not because I am unilaterally declaring myself "correct". The question has played out in practice on multiple occasions..where are the decentralized worker assemblies with a complete disdain for any structure that allows for command/executive decisions? Disputes aren't settled by detached theory -- and lucky thing, because then no dispute would EVER be settled.

Here is the other kicker -- MILLIONS of workers all over the world were responsible for producing social organizations that you dismiss with a wave of your hand. You're going to need a better authority than "most of the anti-capitalist left says"..most of the anti-capitalist left probably pick their nose and eat boogers.

All of those workers were bamboozled?

It really is time to talk about something else. ANYTHING else.

EDIT: consider that we have threads on
-KKE
-Donbass, DPR, LPR
-Free Alabama Movement
-Venezuela
-FARC
-Castro

and many others

Many things are happening..and we're supposed to ceaselessly argue about whether seizing/wielding power implies an authority to bring that power to bear?

Look, the only things that go around in circles perpetually are vultures. And even they land to feed on the carrion below.

Even if it were true that no one agreed with me/us, it doesn't matter. Not so long ago I didn't agree with me either..

Its irrelevant and not because I am unilaterally declaring myself "correct". The question has played out in practice on multiple occasions..where are the decentralized worker assemblies with a complete disdain for any structure that allows for command/executive decisions? Disputes aren't settled by detached theory -- and lucky thing, because then no dispute would EVER be settled.

Here is the other kicker -- MILLIONS of workers all over the world were responsible for producing social organizations that you dismiss with a wave of your hand. You're going to need a better authority than "most of the anti-capitalist left says"..most of the anti-capitalist left probably pick their nose and eat boogers.

All of those workers were bamboozled?

It really is time to talk about something else. ANYTHING else.

EDIT: consider that we have threads on
-KKE
-Donbass, DPR, LPR
-Free Alabama Movement
-Venezuela
-FARC
-Castro

and many others

Many things are happening..and we're supposed to ceaselessly argue about whether seizing/wielding power implies an authority to bring that power to bear?

This shit is truly exhausting. Straight the fuck up, SP thinking he's some sort of voice for the working class--as if none of us are or know the working class. I don't want to get personal like that but this is slowly become offensive.

This shit is truly exhausting. Straight the fuck up, SP thinking he's some sort of voice for the working class--as if none of us are or know the working class. I don't want to get personal like that but this is slowly become offensive.

What he said.

This shit is truly exhausting. Straight the fuck up, SP thinking he's some sort of voice for the working class--as if none of us are or know the working class. I don't want to get personal like that but this is slowly become offensive.

Our immediate program at The Bell is to provide CLARITY through analysis, critique, and propagandizing. I've extended SP an invitation to get on board with that collective goal. That means in particular letting the tangential disputes lie -- they are presently intractable anyway.

This shit is truly exhausting. Straight the fuck up, SP thinking he's some sort of voice for the working class--as if none of us are or know the working class. I don't want to get personal like that but this is slowly become offensive.


Here's a place to start for modern day upper middle-class intellectual leftists who think the workers are stupid sheep that need to be "led, awakened, and enlightened" as to their place in the class struggle...

http://www.thebellforum.com/showthread.php?t=9362

Is "People are Evil", the cornerstone of Liberal thought?

For that matter, is it the cornerstone of Progressives, Conservatives, Libertarians, and American political thought in general?

If the word, "evil", is the wrong one, then how about, "greedy", "stupid", or any other similar descriptor?

Every discussion about Progressivism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Capitalism, Foreign Policy, you name it... seems to come down to "human nature". This "nature" also seems to sit at the core of virtually the entire debate, though it is described differently each time. Sometimes quasi-religious "original sin", other times pseudo-scientific "hard-wiring", here thinly veiled Social Darwinism, there insistent promotion of the wrong "lessons of history" - always relying on a "general agreement" which is gossamer thin and defies examination - is that all there is?

Is the only real disagreement in American Politics, the question of what to do about this "self-evident truth"? Is the entire spectrum of "policy", from the need for "personal growth", to the maintenance of independent bodies and institutions which are somehow abstracted from those very same people (law, religion, the state, civil society), to the "recognition of reality" which underlies every defense of the nature of economic society, is every political construct grounded in this jive-ass cynicism, without a shred of supporting evidence?

And, if that is true, how can anybody who advances this theory exempt themselves?

If the people are "sheeple", why aren't you bleating?

--Anaxarchos

This shit is truly exhausting. Straight the fuck up, SP thinking he's some sort of voice for the working class--as if none of us are or know the working class. I don't want to get personal like that but this is slowly become offensive.

Here's another starting point that cuts to the chase...

1) If "Socialism" has any meaning at all, it is as a political movement rooted in the real world and centered on the property question. Though it sounds simple, that statement alone begins the task of criticism - of taking all that is presented ad hoc and without form, and making sense of it. Old man Marx is a stake in the ground in that process. He is unique in the completeness of his "system" and the rigor of his analysis. As such, almost everything ends up being compared to him and properly so because he is probably the dead man best equipped to defend himself against the living. "Are we not allowed to criticize Marx?", you ask. Of course, and he can be wrong. What do you want to "criticize"? "Well, I don't know but I want to make sure I have that 'right' in case I run into something", you answer. I am not sure where such a right would derive from and who could deny it but have at it... The attempt itself is useful in developing the precision of the debate. In truth, Marx has proven to be unusually resistant to the "Well, it seems to me...", school of social theory these past 150 years.

2) Marx is key to the development of philosophy as a "martial art". Most people I know came to an actual study of Marxism in exactly this way. It sure comes in handy in a union negotiation when the company has lawyers and cash gushing out of their ass and you are by yourself, and the local is demoralized, and you know damn well you can't survive a strike... and so on. The unfortunate part of this is that as a martial art, it is far closer to Tai Chi than it is to Karate - i.e. you can't kick your neighbor's ass with it after a couple of months of diligent study.

As to "shifts in perspective" which bring people "toward Marx", I think life does that. Certainly, no reading or loyalty oaths are required but they do kinda evolve naturally...

I think that the hurdle that most people must pass is not in Marx or Marxism or Socialism or Communism but in the very unsettling thought that there is nothing in the existing social system that is accurately portrayed and nothing within its bounds that may be employed to change that. Get comfortable with that "revolutionary kernel" and old Karl is a breeze.

--Anaxarchos

This shit is truly exhausting. Straight the fuck up, SP thinking he's some sort of voice for the working class--as if none of us are or know the working class. I don't want to get personal like that but this is slowly become offensive.

Required reading...

https://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/us_constitution.php

Toward a Marxist Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution

-- Bertell Ollman

When Moses invented ten fundamental laws for the Jewish people, he had God write them down on stone tablets, Lycurgus, too, represented the constitution he drew up for ancient Sparta as a divine gift. According to Plato, whose book, The Republic, offers another version of the same practice, attributing the origins of a constitution to godly intervention is the most effective way of securing the kind of support needed for it to work. Otherwise, some people are likely to remain skeptical, others passive, and still others critical of whatever biases they perceive in these basic laws, and hence less inclined to follow their mandates. As learned men, the framers of the American Constitution were well aware of the advantages to be gained by enveloping their achievement in religious mystery, but most of the people for whom they labored were religious dissenters who favored a sharp separation between church and state; and since most of the framers were deists and atheists themselves, this particular tactic could not be used. So they did the next best thing, which was to keep the whole process of their work on the Constitution a closely guarded secret. Most Americans know that the framers met for three months in closed session, but this is generally forgiven on the grounds that the then Congress of the United States had not commissioned them to write a new Constitution, and neither revolutionaries nor counter-revolutionaries can do all their work in the open. What few modern-day Americans realize, however, is that the framers did their best to ensure that we would never know the details of their deliberations. All the participants in the convention were sworn to life-long secrecy, and when the debates were over, those who had taken notes were asked to hand them in to George Washington, whose final task as chairman of the convention was to get rid of the evidence. American's first president, it appears, was also its first shredder.

Fortunately, not all the participants kept their vows of silence or handed in all their notes. Bit it wasn't until 1840, a half century after the Constitution was put into effect, with the posthumous surfacing of James Madison's extensive notes, that the American people could finally read what had happened in those three crucial months in Philadelphia. What was revealed was neither divine nor diabolical, but simply human, an all-too-human exercise in politics. Merchants, bankers, ship-owners, planters, slave traders and slave owners, land speculators, and lawyers, who made their money working for these groups, voiced their interests and fears in clear, uncluttered language; and, after settling a few, relatively minor disagreements, they drew up plans for a form of government they believe would serve these interests most effectively. But the fifty years of silence had the desired myth-building effect. The human actors were transformed into "Founding Fathers." Their political savvy and common sense were now seen as all-surpassing wisdom, and their concern for their own class of property owners (and, to a lesser, extent, sections of the country and occupational groups) had been elevated to universal altruism (in the liberal version) or self-sacrificing patriotism (in the preferred conservative view). Nor have we been completely spared the aura of religious mystery so favored by Plato. With the passage of years and the growing religiosity of our citizenry, it had become almost commonplace to hear that the framers were also divinely inspired.

The year 1987 was the bicentennial of the writing of the Constitution, and wherever one turned in the media, in schools and professional associations, in talks by politicians and other public figures, the same myths appeared. The Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, which was set up under Chief Justice Burger to coordinate most of these efforts, demonstrated its own commitment to historical truth by initially taking as its slogan "200 Years of Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty."

What is in danger of being lost among all the patriotic non-sequiturs is the underside of criticism and protest that had accompanied the Constitution form its very inception. Not everyone has been satisfied to treat this product of men as if it came from God. Even before the Constitution was officially adopted, many people, known to history as Anti-Federalists, questioned whether what was good for the property-owning factions that were so well represented in Philadelphia would be as good for those who owned little or nothing. Then as subsequently, the main questions raised dealt with the limitations on suffrage, the inadequate defense of individual rights and freedoms, the acceptance and even strengthening of the institution of slavery, and the many other benefits given to men of property.

Taken at face value, the Constitution is an attempt to fix the relations between state and federal governments, and between the three branches—legislative, executive, and judiciary—of the latter. And most accounts of this document have concentrated on the mechanical arrangements that make this balancing act possible. In the process, the Constitution's basic assumptions and particularly its social and economic purposes have been grossly neglected. It is a little like learning in some detail how a car works before even knowing what kind of machine it is, what it is supposed to do, and why it was constructed in just this way. Learning the functioning of any system, whether mechanical or institutional, is not without value in determining its meaning and use, but we would do better to approach their symbiosis from the other side, to examine who needed what and how the specific structures created responded to these needs. What is really at stake in any political dispute, the real-life questions involved, and why different people take the positions they do, can never be adequately understood by focusing solely or even mainly on the legalistic forms in which the issues are presented and fought out.

In examining any political phenomena, it is always wise to ask, "Who benefits?" As regards the American constitutional system, the answer was given clearly, if somewhat crudely, by Senator Boies Penrose, a late nineteenth-century Republican from Pennsylvania, who told a business audience: "I believe in a division of labor. You send us to Congress; we pass the laws under which you make money � and out of your profits you further contribute to our campaigns funds to send us back again to pass more laws to enable you to make more money" (Green, 35). When, a few years later, Charles Beard suggested that the same kind considerations may have played a role in the writing of the Constitution, he unleashed a political storm against his book that had few if any parallels in our history. Then-president Taft publicly denounced this unseemly muckraking as besmirching the reputations of our Founding Fathers. Not particularly noted for his indifference to economic gain when he became president, Warren Harding, at that time a newspaper publisher, attacked Beard's filthy lies and rotten perversions" in an article entitled, "Scavengers, Hyena-Like, Desecrate the Graves of the Dead Patriots We Revere" (McDonald, xix). And even as a growing number of professional historians came to accept Beard's interpretation, the city of Seattle banned his book.

Obviously, Beard had touched a tender nerve, but it is also obvious that economic motivations—as Beard himself recognized—are only part of the explanation for political phenomena. Other factors influence people's behavior, and some people act often and even primarily out of other kinds of motives. The problem is how to credit these necessary qualifications without unduly compromising the original insight (not really that original, since political theory has known about the importance of economic motivation from Plato on).

In an attempt to redirect attention away from the mechanical and socially uninformative details of checks and balances, criticisms of the Constitution have proceeded on three distinct though closely related levels. The first concentrates on the people who wrote the document, on who they were and what they thought, feared, and wanted. The second deals with the classes and subclasses to which they belonged and which they more or less consciously represented, with the objective interests of these classes and what was required to satisfy them. Here what is decisive are the assumptions and ways of thinking that correspond to membership in a particular class, or the part of human understanding that comes from what we take for granted, not so much because of who we are as because of where we fit in society. Hence, for example, one might favor strong laws to protect private property not because one wants to remain wealthy (though I suspect most wealthy people do), but because one has been socialized as a member of a property owning class to take this requirement and its connection to life, liberty, and the pursuit happiness for granted. The third level introduces the nature of the capitalist mode of production, and tries to bring out how the Constitution, together with other political institutions, function as both cause and effect within the life process of a developing capitalist society.

From the start, most criticisms have been situated on the first and second of these levels. However, given the necessary relations between levels, a fully adequate analysis of what our Constitution means would have to devote more attention to the larger context capitalism, in which it was produced and which it helps in no small measure to reproduce. To be sure, capitalism doesn't exist apart from the social economic classes whose struggle over opposing interests constitutes its central drama. Nor can these classes be completely understood apart from the lives of the real individuals who compose them. But the reverse is equally true: the actions of the individual framers makes little sense—opening the way for various superficial interpretations—if viewed apart from the class interests which they sought to further; just as the nature of these classes, their specific interests, and the conditions and means available to satisfy them require a contextualization that could only come from an account of the enveloping capitalist system. It was early commercial capitalism in its free worker and slave variants that gave rise to the main property owning classes represented at Philadelphia; that established the conditions for their alliance and made this alliance politically dominant; that led to the most pressing problems from which these classes suffered; and finally that provided both the possibilities and limits for the resolution of these problems. Unfortunately, the book that treats the Constitution as a political extension of the capitalist mode of production, as an organic function of this historically developing whole, while not losing sight of how it is also a product of a particular class alliance and of the real individuals who gathered in Philadelphia remains to be written.

What still needs to be stressed—chiefly because even most critics ignore it—is that on all three levels of analysis and throughout the entire two hundred years of its history, the Constitution has been a way of understanding reality as much as it has served to shape it. And it has succeeded in ordering society in part through how it has made people think about it, just as these practical achievements have secured widespread acceptance for the intellectual modes that they embody. In sum, an important part of the Constitution's work is ideological. As ideology, the Constitution provides us with a kind of bourgeois fairy tale in which claims to equal rights and responsibilities are substituted for the harsh realities of class domination. Through the Constitution, the struggle over the legitimacy of any social act or relationship is removed from the plane of morality to that of law. Justice is no longer what is fair but what is legal, and politics itself is transformed into the technical wrangling of lawyers and judges. The Constitution organizes consent not least by its manner or organizing dissent. The fact that two-thirds of the world's lawyers practice in the United States is not, as they say, a coincidence. The main ideologists in the American system are not teachers, preachers, or media people, but lawyers and judges.

Unlike political theory, the Constitution not only offers us a picture of reality but through the state's monopoly on violence it forces citizens to act, or at least to speak, "as if." Acting as if the rule of law, equality of opportunity, freedom of the individual, and the neutrality of the state, all of which are inscribed in the Constitution, are more than formally true inhibits people's ability to recognize that they are all practically false, that the society set up with the help of the Constitution simply does not operate in these ways. It is not a matter of reality failing to live up to a set of commendable ideals but of these ideals serving to help mask this reality through misrepresenting what is legal for what is actual, what is permissible in law for what is possible in society. When does an ideal become a barrier to the realization of what it supposedly promotes? When people are encouraged to treat the ideal as a description, however, imperfect, of the real, as in the claim that ours is a society ruled by law, where whatever actually exists that goes counter to this claim is relegated to the role of a passing qualification. Viewed in this way, the dynamics of who is doing what to whom and why, together with the structural reforms needed to change things, can never be understood.

Finally, all such criticisms should not blind us to the many positive and progressive qualities of the Constitution, both for the time in which it was written and for the present day. By 1787 the revolutionary war had been over for four years, but it was still not clear that the English ruling class had accepted its result. What could be done to ensure the country's political independence? And how best to deal with the economic problems resulting from the disruption of trade and investment patterns that accompanied this independence? These problems were not very different from those confronting ex-colonial counties that have gained their independence in our century; and in every case setting up a strong central government had been vital for their solution. Beyond this, and especially for the late eighteenth century, the Constitution deserves high marks for its attempt to limit the arbitrary power of government (providing some protection for its own critics) and for such measures as the elimination of all religious qualifications for voting and holding office.

With the passing years the Constitution has also proved to be admirably suited for a society in transition from early to late capitalism, that is, from one dominated by merchant and financial capitalists and slave owners tied to capital through their production for a world market, to one dominated by industrial and financial capitalists, both domestic and multinational. By facilitating the accumulation of wealth on a scale never before dreamed of in world history, the Constitution can also be viewed as helping make possible a transition to socialism at a very high level of economic development. Few of these positive qualities come without their regressive aspects or side effects, but that should not keep us from recognizing their existence or importance, or making use of them when we can. Though not the same virtues that are trumpeted in most bicentennial celebrations, they should be enough to show that our criticisms do not lead us to regret that the Constitution was even written. One studies the past neither to annul it nor to improve it, but to build upon it where that is possible. In learning how the Constitution works, for whom it works better and for whom it works worse, and how and why it acquired its character, we discover not only what the Constitution has meant but what it may yet mean in our future.

Can the Constitution serve a people bent on a democratic socialist transformation of capitalist society? It has done everything a document could possible do to forestall such an eventuality; and as the central institutional prop of our capitalist society, it continues to act in his way. And yet, despite its lopsided and deceptive form and the worst elitist intentions of its framers, the changes it has undergone in the past two hundred years suggest that this possibility cannot be ruled out. Nothing, of course, came easy. Every amendment to the Constitution, just like most new interpretations by the Supreme Court (in some ways more important than new amendments), and each change of emphasis in its administration and enforcement have come about as a result of popular struggle. Neither blacks, nor women, nor un-propertied males, for example, were simply handed the right to vote. It might be said that the expansion of democracy only occurred after it became clear that the influence of party machines, public education, newspapers, churches, mass spectator sports, patriotism and especially the growth of the economic pie through capitalist development and American imperialistic adventures "abroad" (including Indian and Mexican lands west of the Mississippi) would suffice to ensure that the newly enfranchised publics would not use their power for subversive ends.

But the most fundamental contradiction in the entire Constitution cannot be dismissed so easily. This is the contradiction between political democracy and economic servitude. The framers did everything they could—consistent with winning acceptance for the document—to avoid placing the loaded gun of popular sovereignty in the hands of the people. They had no doubt as to what would happen to the grossly unequal distribution of property in our country (at present, 1 percent of the population owns 50 percent of all wealth) should this even occur (Carter, 35). Well, it has occurred, the mass of America's citizens has made little use of political democracy to obtain economic democracy. For some, therefore, the trial is over, and the verdict is in. For us, the jury, is still out. Capitalism in extremis had many catastrophes in store for all of us. And with the stakes so high, history can afford to take its time. Meanwhile, more informed criticism of the one-sided, deceptive, and biased rules of the game by which we are all forced to play can hurry history along just that little bit, and in the process encourage thinking on the role—if any—of the Constitution in the transition to a socialist society.

This shit is truly exhausting. Straight the fuck up, SP thinking he's some sort of voice for the working class--as if none of us are or know the working class. I don't want to get personal like that but this is slowly become offensive.

A little Trot for the occasion...take what you want and leave the rest as they say...

http://www.marxist.com/the-class-struggle-and-the-american-working-class.htm

The Class Struggle and the American Working Class

--John Peterson

For millions of people around the world, the United States represents the ultimate citadel of reaction: Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, the CIA, imperialism, sanctions, war, drones, anti-communism, discrimination, and exploitation. The American people are alleged to be a homogeneous bloc of ignorant, indifferent racists who blindly and enthusiastically back the reactionary economic and military policies of their government. Many people—even on the left— imagine that the US is immune from class conflict, and that life for the majority in the “belly of the beast” is prosperous and peaceful. However, while there may be an element of truth in some of this, the reality is far more complex. The United States is in fact a society riven with deep class contradictions. It has an enormous and powerful working class and an inspiring revolutionary past—and future.

[The below is an Introduction to the first Urdu edition of Marxism and the USA. The book has been translated by the Pakistani comrades of The Struggle and will be launched the coming congress of the The Struggle in March.]

occupyIt is in this context that the publication of the Urdu edition of Alan Woods’ Marxism and the USA marks an important milestone for revolutionary Marxists in both Pakistan and the United States. For the first time since it was originally published in 2005, Alan Woods’ whirlwind tour of the true history of class struggle in the USA is being made available to a Pakistani audience. In this short work, Alan succeeds in dispelling many common misconceptions about the US and draws on the marvelous traditions of struggle throughout American history. He provides one example after another which show how the ideas of socialism and communism are not alien importations, but rather, have deep roots in the American tradition itself. In a series of short and engaging articles, he brings to vibrant life the heroic revolutionary and labor traditions of this often-maligned country.
Historical Materialism

Unfortunately, many people regard history as dry and dusty—an endless and disconnected recitation of dates and individuals. But history need not be boring or incoherent. In fact, armed with the Marxist method, the study of history sheds a bright light on the present and is indispensable in orienting our perspectives for the future. Far from being monotonous and linear, history is a rich and contradictory process, driven by the struggle over the surplus wealth created by the laboring masses. As Karl Marx explained in his introduction to The Critique of Political Economy:

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.”

This concisely sums up of the Marxist approach to history, also known as “historical materialism.” Once we begin to understand history—not as a random series of unrelated episodes, but as an infinitely complex and tightly interconnected chain of events involving mass social forces, in which cause becomes effect and effect becomes cause—a whole new world opens up. No longer does it appear to be a more or less irrelevant collection of useless trivia. Instead, the experiences of past struggles of the working class come alive, brimming with lessons for our own struggle to change the world today.
American history

As a young country, the history of the United States and its meteoric rise to world prominence is compressed into a few intense centuries. The richest country on earth certainly has its vast natural resources to thank, in part, for its position. But above all, it was built on the backs of millions of indigenous peoples, African slaves, European indentured servants, and the endless stream of political and economic refugees from around the world who have searched for the “American Dream” on its shores.

In this extraordinary book, Alan introduces the reader the communistic traditions of the Native Americans; the revolutionary-democratic beliefs of the Pilgrims; the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the revolutionary defeat the mighty British Empire by an army of rural farmers and urban artisans; Abraham’s Lincoln’s revolutionary war against slavery and the expropriation of billions of dollars of human property; the bitter struggles of the early American labor movement, including the class battles of the 1930s and beyond. In its pages, the history of class struggle in the US truly comes alive.
Class struggle

So just what is the class struggle? Simply defined, the class struggle is the struggle over the surplus wealth created by the producing classes. Will that surplus go towards further enriching the minority that controls society? Or will it go towards improving the quality of life of the working majority who actually produce the wealth? Or perhaps we can live in a world without exploiters, where society democratically determines what is to be done with the wealth we collectively produce?

The ruling class is that class which controls the state and owns the means of production of society—the land and natural resources, the workshops and factories, the banks. The actual producers of wealth are those who own nothing but their ability to work, and are therefore either owned outright as slaves, tied to the land as feudal serfs, perhaps own a tiny plot of land on which they scrape out an existence while still having to work and pay debts to others, or sell their labor power for a wage to a capitalist. That is the simplified essence of the class struggle. In the modern era, that struggle is above all between the working class and the capitalist class.
Class society

Ever since humans first developed as a distinct species and branched off from the rest of the animal world, we have organized ourselves in various ways in order to produce the necessities of life. We have come together in an array of socio-economic structures, including primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and a wide variety of transitional and hybrid forms. For the majority of our existence, we lived as communists in a classless society, albeit on a low technological level. But ever since the rise of classes, as Marx and Engels explained in the Communist Manifesto, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.”

With the rise of class society came a division into differing layers of people—castes and classes–each with a definite relationship to each other and to the means of production; that is, to the means by which we produce the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the homes we live in, and everything else we humans have extracted from nature through our labor and creativity.

Broadly speaking, there are laboring classes, and those that live off the labor of others. The exploiters and the exploited. The two main contending classes in the class struggle are those who own the key economic levers of society—the means of production—and those who must work the means of production of another in order to survive.

Sometimes the class struggle takes place between different layers of one and the same class, and sometimes the lines between the classes are blurred, for example in 1930s Spain, where the landlords were also capitalists, the capitalists were landlords, and the Catholic Church was the biggest landlord and capitalist of them all. Or even in New York City today, where Trinity Church is one of the biggest landlords and property owners, and therefore a powerful player in the city par excellence of finance capital. Talk about uneven and combined development—something workers in the Indian Subcontinent are all-too familiar with.

All of this applies to the US just as much as any other country dominated by capitalism—you cannot have an exploiting capitalist class without a working class that is being exploited. Long before US capitalism entered its predatory, imperialist phase, the ruling class enriched itself on the vast natural resources and labor of millions of people right here on the American continent.

In fact, America’s more than 155 million workers are among the most exploited on the planet. Based on an extremely high level of labor productivity, American workers create vast amounts of wealth for the capitalists, but receive only a small ratio of that back in the form of wages. The effects of a strike of even a small portion of the American workers would be devastating to the profits of the capitalists. For example, just 36,000 unionized dock workers load and unload every ship on the West coast of the United States. This means that every single container imported to the US Pacific coast from Asia and beyond must first pass through the hands of a relative handful of union workers. Even a one-day strike of these dockers would result in billions of dollars in losses to the capitalists. This is a clear indication of the colossal power of the US working class.

The working class is the overwhelming majority of the USA; the wonders of its cities, railroads, highways, mines, industry, and vast tracts of farmland are the result of the workers’ sweat, tears, blood, and brains. And yet, Americans themselves are rarely taught the truth about their own history. There is a very simple reason for this. If American workers were to understand their true power and their class’s repeated attempts to change society, they might be tempted to engage in open class struggle again and again—and this represents a mortal threat to the continuation of the capitalist system.
A brief overview of early American history

When Europeans first arrived in what would become the United States, most of the Native American societies they encountered were primitive communists—living communally on a very basic technological level. It was the Europeans who introduced classes into the US. They brought with them elements of feudalism, merchant capitalism, and of course, indentured servitude and chattel slavery. The wiping out and enslavement of millions of Native Americans was a one-sided class war between primitive communists and feudalists/nascent capitalists.

And yet, many readers may be surprised to learn that many of those who first settled in the US were bourgeois revolutionary democrats—people who had fought and failed to overthrow repressive governments in places like Holland, England, Scandinavia, and elsewhere. They were fleeing religious and political persecution. They brought with them ideas that were revolutionary for their time: popular assemblies and militias; and democracy for at least some members of society—white, male property owners (as opposed to the absolutely despotic rule of the nobility and aristocracy in Europe)—this was limited, but a step forward. Many of them also supported religious freedom, freedom of expression, and the freedom to organize.

These ideas took root, and above all, the economic base in Britain’s American colonies got stronger. Eventually, the embryo of a native ruling class grew up within the old colonial society. This up-and-coming bourgeoisie did not want to share the riches created by the labor of the American toilers with the King of England across the Atlantic, and eventually fomented a rebellion. It was a class struggle between the nascent US bourgeoisie and the Southern slavocracy on one side, versus the British bourgeois and feudalists on the other. As always in the epoch of bourgeois revolution, although the political and economic benefits went to the bankers, mercantilists, lawyers, and large landowners, the actual fighting was done by the small farmers, proto-proletariat (artisans and mechanics), slaves, and indentured servants.

The pre-Revolution period of American history was also not without important examples of the class struggle. In 1676, there was Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia, in which slaves, frontiersmen, and indentured servants united across racial lines to fight against the state government. In 1739, there was the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina, the largest slave uprising in the history of the 13 American colonies.

After the revolution, once the British had been expelled and their American supporters expropriated, the new ruling class worked vigorously to consolidate its rule. However, now that they were the oppressors, tax collectors, and profiteers, they faced the wrath of the ordinary people who had fought during the war for freedom and equality. Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, in 1786-87, was the most famous example of the post-revolutionary wave of class struggle. In every one of the 13 former British colonies, economically ruined small farmers and revolutionary war veterans took matters into their own hands in an attempt to establish a more egalitarian society.

The Shaysites burned down court buildings, freed comrades jailed in debtor’s prisons, and even planned to march on Boston to burn it down in order to break the political power of the hated banks and big merchants. The rebellion eventually fizzled out, due in part to bad luck and a blinding snow storm. But this wave of struggle against the new economic aristocracy had a big effect on the kind of Constitution and government that was subsequently established in the United States. It led to a more centralized federal system than was previously envisioned by the “Founding Fathers,” and allowed for the creation of a standing army to deal with internal dissent.

When the subsequent Whiskey Rebellion broke out in western Pennsylvania from 1791-94, the federal government moved decisively to put it down, sending 13,000 troops—with President George Washington himself at the head of the army. He was determined to send the clear message that popular uprisings would not be tolerated.

In the decades before the Civil War of 1961-65, the tensions and differences between the slave-owning Southern ruling class and the rising Northern capitalist class continued to build. Slave rebellions were a relatively common occurrence, with Nat Turner’s slave uprising and John Brown’s failed attempt to spark a civil war eventually leading to the arming and secession of the South. War was now the only possible way to resolve the contradictions.

The American Civil War was one of the most dramatic examples of the class struggle in the whole of human history. As Alan Woods explains in the current volume, it was the Second American Revolution. In essence, it represented a revolutionary war between Northern capitalism, which at that time was an historically progressive system, and the slave-owning plantation system of the South—two fundamentally different socio-economic systems that could no longer coexist in the same state and on the same continent. Marx, Engels, and the First International were enthusiastic supporters of Abraham Lincoln and urged him to wage a ruthless war against slavery.

Once again, the fighting on both sides was done by ordinary workers, small farmers, sharecroppers, slaves, ex-slaves, and immigrants. Entire workplaces in the North, many with workers organized in embryonic unions, shut down for the duration of the war and joined the Union Army to fight slavery. Many revolutionaries from Europe, including many who had worked closely with Marx and Engels, also joined the Union Army.

Once the slave economy was smashed, the historical decks had been cleared for the relentless and merciless flourishing of capitalism throughout the entire country. The former slaves were now “free”—free to sell their labor power for a wage and free to work as sharecroppers (which was practically like serfdom). They were also free to be arrested for minor transgressions—such as the “crime” of being homeless and propertyless—and put to work in chain gangs. These were slave-like conditions, but they now labored in the service of capitalist profits. A massive migration began, as millions of former slaves moved out of the South in search of jobs in the rapidly expanding industries of the North and West.

The end of slavery meant that the lines of the class struggle in the US became clearer than ever. The class struggle was transformed into a titanic battle between the rapidly growing working class and the ever-richer capitalist class, with the middle layers and remnants of previous socio-economic forms increasingly squeezed out. The American capitalists were now unleashed upon the rest of the continent and eventually on the entire world. This brought with it greater polarization between rich and poor, and more brutal and sophisticated exploitation than ever in the pursuit of profits.

Given the ferocious offensive by the bosses, the workers were compelled to organize collectively to defend their interests. In the decades after the Civil War, the organized labor movement gained momentum, a mirror reflection of the rising power of the capitalists. For example, in 1877, a massive wave of strikes on the railroads spread throughout the country and even led to a workers’ commune in the city of St. Louis, Missouri—complete with elected workers’ councils and militias controlling that important city.

Hundreds of workers were martyred while working in barbarous conditions in the late 1800s and early 1900s—conditions all-too familiar for workers today in South Asia. But American workers did not take these attacks on their rights and dignity without a fight. Mighty unions were formed in the heat of bitter class battles, and many more workers were martyred at the hands of the state and the capitalists’ hired thugs. And although none of the many efforts to establish a mass labor party to politically represent the interests of the workers took root, that chapter of the American class struggle is also far from over.
The class struggle continues

As the reader can see from this brief introduction, American history is very similar to the history of the rest of the world—it is a history of class struggle. The methods of organization and struggle of the working masses have changed and developed along with the development of the economy generally. But the trend over the centuries has been towards an increasing concentration of wealth on one side, and a concentration of the working class on the other. And although long periods may pass without open conflict, the class struggle is always taking place, sometimes just simmering beneath the ground, other times bursting to the surface and raging openly for whole historical epochs.

Alan’s basic premise in Marxism and the USA is the following: the United States is a society torn apart by tremendous class contradictions, and sooner or later, the militant and revolutionary traditions of the past will return on an even higher level. The experience of the last decade has shown this analysis to be 100% correct.

The millions-strong anti-Iraq war movement in 2003 was more than a protest against the war; it reflected a deep-seated discontent with the status quo. The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 exposed the profound inequality and racism upon which the American capitalists “divide and rule” and maintain their power. The magnificent movement of millions of undocumented immigrant workers in 2006 showed the enormous potential power of the mobilized working class. The 2008 factory occupation at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, inspired by the occupied factory movement in Venezuela, showed that militant action does get results.

In 2011, a mass movement in the state of Wisconsin occupied the state capitol building to protest the governor’s attacks on public sector unions. Taking the heroic uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak as their example, they carried signs such as “Fight Like an Egyptian!” This is a marvelous example of how in the epoch of global capitalist crisis, the struggle is also global.

The Occupy movement, also in 2011, showed that in the heart of world finance capital, tens of thousands of Americans are unhappy with the status quo. The movement spread rapidly around the country and around the world. Although its aims were limited and its methods confused, it was an important learning experience for American workers and youth, and was only a small example of the explosions of the class struggle we will see in the years to come.

In 2012 and 2013, workers in the fast food, retail, and service industries have organized walk-outs, work slow-downs, and strikes. It is still very early in this process, but it is clear that the pressure is rising. American workers are saying “enough is enough” to low wages and poor conditions and are drawing important conclusions about the reality of life under capitalism. Sooner or later, the “heavy battalions” of the working class will join the fray.

To paraphrase the great American historian W.E.B DuBois, the more or less isolated eddies of the class struggle are swirling more and more into a great current; the revolutionary implications for the future are clear.
American capitalism in crisis

We live in an epoch of austerity, war, crisis, revolution, and counterrevolution—and the USA is at the heart of this process. Capitalism is at an impasse on a world scale and can no longer develop the means of production or improve the quality of life of the majority. The decay is evident everywhere. The once dynamic and innovative capitalist system is now stagnant, based on parasitism and speculation, and threatens to drag the whole of humanity down with it.

The economic base of US imperialism is teetering, and as a result, it is not the monolithic force it once appeared to be. The ruling class is caught between a rock and a hard place and are deeply divided over how to proceed. As Lenin explained, the inability of the ruling class to continue ruling in the old way is one of the first indications that an era of social revolution is approaching.

It is often said that war is the handmaiden of revolution. The humiliating defeats of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan may not have led to an absolute collapse of military morale along the lines of the defeat in Vietnam, but these wars have bankrupted the treasury and the chickens are now coming home to roost.

The entirety of the $17 trillion federal debt—which amounts to nearly $55,000 for every American man, woman, and child—can be traced to spending on these wars and the bailout of the banking and insurance giants after the 2008 economic crash. The workers are now being made to pay for the capitalist crisis with mass unemployment, homelessness, stagnant wages, the slashing of pensions, and vicious cuts to the few remaining social programs that were won through mass struggles in the past.

Some 24 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. 22% of American children live in poverty. Millions of Americans are going hungry as draconian cuts to the federal Food Stamps program are pushed through with the support of both Democrats and Republicans. Young people owe over $1 trillion in student debt and millions cannot find jobs in their field of study. An estimated 3 million Americans are homeless. Rents have risen by 12% since 2007, yet wages have hardly changed. At the same time, the wealthiest 10% of Americans are far richer than they were before 2008. The richest 5% of Americans control over 60% of the wealth while the poorest 40% control just 0.2%. This is the real situation in the “land of milk and honey.” While the misery may not be at the same objective degree as it is in many parts of the Indian subcontinent, for millions of Americans, the slogan roti, kapda, aur makaan would get quite an echo!

However, we must remember that it is not the absolute level of immiseration that will inevitably lead to a revival of revolutionary struggle in the US. It is above all the sharp, sudden changes—the constant instability—which is an inescapable consequence of life under capitalism. For millions of people, the “American Dream” has been transformed into an “American nightmare.” This is having a profound effect on consciousness, especially on the youth. To give just one example of how this is already being manifested, a majority of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 now say they prefer socialism to capitalism!
The need for revolutionary leadership

On a world scale, the balance of forces is more favorable for the working class than ever. In the US, despite the many attacks on the workers and the numerical decline in union membership over the last 30 years, the potential power of the working class to bring society to a grinding halt—and therefore to change society—is greater than ever. As Marx and Engels explained, capitalism, by enlarging the working class—which it is compelled to do since wage labor is the source of its profits—creates the gravediggers for its own system. So despite what we are told by the media, the current labor leadership, and the so-called left, the American labor movement’s most heroic days still lie ahead.

This is why we can confidently say that the material conditions for the socialist transformation of society are more than ripe in the US—perhaps riper than anywhere else on earth. Although a majority of Americans may not yet be aware of that fact, the bitter experience of life under capitalism is the greatest teacher, and the workers and youth are learning quickly.

What is lacking, however, is the necessary leadership. A Marxist revolutionary party represents the most advanced layer of the working class. It serves as the historical memory and concentrates the collective experience of our class internationally; it serves as a transmission belt, bringing the lessons of the past to the struggles of today. The tragic lesson of the 20th century is that without theoretical and historical clarity, without organization and discipline, we will not be able to defeat our class enemy. This is why we study Marxist theory and history.

Just as it is necessary for American workers and youth to learn from the inspiring examples of Mangal Pandey, Bhagat Singh, the revolutionary uprisings against British rule, and the millions who entered the path of struggle in 1968 in Pakistan, our comrades in Pakistan can learn much from the lives of John Brown, Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, and the millions who fought against British imperialism, slavery, monopoly capital, racial segregation, and imperialist war. In Marxism and the USA, readers will find a treasure trove of ideas and lessons that can be applied to our struggles today.
The need for genuine internationalism

When I first met my dear friend and comrade, Lal Khan, in the summer of 1998, he told me that growing up in Pakistan, he and his comrades had a burning hatred for US imperialism. How could it be otherwise! But he explained that over time, they learned to differentiate between the US ruling class and the US working class. While US imperialism and its local stooges are the main enemy of the Pakistani working class, the US workers, along with the rest of the workers of the world, are the Pakistani workers’ main allies. This is the real meaning of Marx’s rousing call for the workers of all countries to unite!

He also told me that having comrades fighting for the ideas of Marxism and socialism in the United States filled him and the comrades of the Struggle with enormous revolutionary optimism and energy. I was equally enthused by our first meeting. It represented a living connection with thousands of revolutionaries fighting for the same world-historic cause on the other side of the planet. Despite working in very different economic, political, and social conditions, at root, our struggle is one and the same. It is precisely this kind of connection that makes the International Marxist Tendency a truly internationalist organization. The US comrades of the IMT are continually inspired by the example of our Pakistani comrades, and follow their work with the keenest of interest.
Fight for socialism!

The USA is surely the most despised, oppressive, and repressive state in the history of humanity. But dialectical materialism teaches us that everything turns into its opposite. Far from being an eternal bastion of reaction, the US will at a certain stage turn into its direct opposite.

The First American Revolution was an inspiration to the French Revolution and many other revolutionary movements for national liberation and independence. The Second American Revolution—the US Civil War—inspired the solidarity of workers from Britain to Germany and beyond. The American Socialist Revolution will likewise transform the US into a source of inspiration for workers worldwide.

From Egypt to Greece, the workers are rising up against the oppression, austerity, discrimination, hunger, unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and misery of capitalism. The United States cannot escape this process. What we see in European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern streets today, we will see in the US in the not-too-distant future.

As Marxists we understand that one successful revolution anywhere in the world will transform the situation. Given its position on a world scale and the strength of its working class, the victory of the American socialist revolution will mean the liberation of the whole of humanity.


This is why Marxism and the USA deserves the attention of every class-conscious worker and youth in Pakistan and throughout the Indian subcontinent. Because, as the Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote when commenting on his brief stay in New York City before returning to Russia in March of 1917: “[The United States is] the foundry in which the fate of man is to be forged.”

Here's a place to start for modern day upper middle-class intellectual leftists who think the workers are stupid sheep that need to be "led, awakened, and enlightened" as to their place in the class struggle...

http://www.thebellforum.com/showthread.php?t=9362

Is "People are Evil", the cornerstone of Liberal thought?

For that matter, is it the cornerstone of Progressives, Conservatives, Libertarians, and American political thought in general?

If the word, "evil", is the wrong one, then how about, "greedy", "stupid", or any other similar descriptor?

Every discussion about Progressivism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Capitalism, Foreign Policy, you name it... seems to come down to "human nature". This "nature" also seems to sit at the core of virtually the entire debate, though it is described differently each time. Sometimes quasi-religious "original sin", other times pseudo-scientific "hard-wiring", here thinly veiled Social Darwinism, there insistent promotion of the wrong "lessons of history" - always relying on a "general agreement" which is gossamer thin and defies examination - is that all there is?

Is the only real disagreement in American Politics, the question of what to do about this "self-evident truth"? Is the entire spectrum of "policy", from the need for "personal growth", to the maintenance of independent bodies and institutions which are somehow abstracted from those very same people (law, religion, the state, civil society), to the "recognition of reality" which underlies every defense of the nature of economic society, is every political construct grounded in this jive-ass cynicism, without a shred of supporting evidence?

And, if that is true, how can anybody who advances this theory exempt themselves?

If the people are "sheeple", why aren't you bleating?

--Anaxarchos

Fuck off.

Fuck off.

What he said!

Fuck off.


"Relax"...and on that note let me offer you healing. Someone here once offered the same to the Kid in the heat of battle.

But it is rather obvious to me and my accountant that you are in need of Luminous Body Healing® to release unworkable personal, family and karmic patterns. Since these work at the subtle level, where the pattern itself rests outside of time, (fortunately your checkbook is still timely and grounded) the sessions make powerful change without focusing on symptoms. The way is cleared before it becomes manifest in physical form. Sometimes soul retrieval and extractions are necessary and become a powerful part of the return to wholeness and natural life. I'm also very pleased to offer a gentle, exquisite way of releasing deep trauma and stress- whether this be the shock of life-threatening or horrendous event, or something which developed incrementally over a childhood of time. I am also trained in Feldenkrais® body work and can do those sessions as well for $129.95.

Fuck off.

I expect nothing less from you at this point. Your true colors are coming through for the audience. It tickles me to no end.

I expect nothing less from you at this point. Your true colors are coming through for the audience. It tickles me to no end.

Momentary lapse of keyboard etiquette due to frustration. My bad. Carry on.

Momentary lapse of keyboard etiquette due to frustration. My bad. Carry on.

I don't believe you. I think your purpose here is not what it appears. Sound familiar ?

What he said!

This one is for you Professor...

https://iww.org/history/library/Ettor/industrial_unionism

--Joe Ettor

Rising out of conditions that have long become unsupportable, that were never intended should benefit but the few, conditions that are a living outrage on the lives of the working class of the nation; Industrial Unionism, the One Big Union, of all the workers of all trades and all industries; striving energetically and with devoted enthusiasm for the one burning ideal and hope of the world's toilers Solidarity to the end of accomplishing final and complete industrial emancipation, is no longer a mere plan or scheme to foist upon the wage workers of the land.

Witness France, very recently and most successfully the efforts and triumph in England. Hear the echo and rumbling. The masters at home will soon have to deal with it much as they may dislike to or pretend and prate that the “American wage workers are too level-headed and steady to run off at a tangent like the hordes of Europe.”

It is now a living force, a movement aiming at certain immediate objects and imbued with definite and lofty principles, applying up-to-date tactics that mean ultimate success. Not seeking to live on the tradition, history and glory of a past, but is a determined and enthusiastic effort on the part of conscious workers to live and struggle for better working conditions now and never lose sight of the main object—Emancipation.

Hitherto the effort has been ignored, laughed at even by men and women that pre-tended very noisily to know the aims and hopes of labor. This element has arrogated to itself the right to program the workers' activities. But in spite of opposition, open and secret, by self-appointed guardians and enemies, the ideas and the movement is reaching a point that compels attention particularly from the enemy. It has come on the floor for discussion and all amendments offered, side-stepping done, calumny, efforts to postpone and conciliate, will neither adjourn nor abate the discussion.

It is said that our ideas are impractical. That is true. From the standpoint of old institutions, interests and their beneficiaries; the new is always impractical.

We also hear it said that our efforts are dangerous. Yes, gentle reader, our ideas, our principles and object are certainly dangerous and menacing, applied by a united working class would shake society and certainly those who are now on top sumptuously feeding upon the good things they have not produced would feel the shock.

OUR PRINCIPLES—OUR AIMS.

“The working class and the employing have nothing in common.”

That is more and more forcibly and eloquently being brought home to our class. Whatever failure the agitator may make in impressing the toilers of the conflict of interests between employers and employees, is most eloquently and convincingly impressed now as in the past, by the policemen's clubs, the whip and the mace of State troopers, militiamen's bayonets, soldiers' machine guns, jails, bull pens and scaffold, and such other “civilized weapons and methods” that capitalism needs to impress on the slaves the sanctity of property rights and “freedom to labor.”

Certainly there can be no common interests between those who own the tools, the machines, factories, mines, mills and land, with the workers who do all of the producing. One class does all the work, produces all, suffers all the hardships necessary to accomplish the task. The other class owns, but does not know, nor cares to know, how to produce wealth, yet persists by rights that it labels “legal” and otherwise to live upon what it does not produce.

“There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few who make up the employing class have all the good things of life.”

One class works long hours under conditions generally and necessarily established by and suitable to the masters of industry, receives low wages, so that there may be high dividends and profits for the masters. For it must be borne in mind longer hours mean greater wealth produced, low wages mean greater profits for the capitalists. Shorter hours mean less production by each worker or group of workers, therefore the expense to the masters is greater to produce a certain amount of wealth. High wages, shorter hours, better shop conditions that will protect life and limb are objected to by the capitalist for a thousand and one “reasons,” but really because it all means greater cost—thus less dividends—resulting in less palaces, less automobiles, less silk dresses for their wives and daughters.

To the working class, shorter hours means less exertion of energy, longer lives, more workers employed, less competition for jobs, higher wages, more bread, better houses, happier lives.

Members of the upper class are known for eating too much. Members of the laboring class die for want of enough to eat.

Who can be so stupid or knavish as to talk of peace between these two classes?

And yet there are some, quite a few, who do so, particularly after a feast at a Civic Federation meeting.

"Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production and abolish the wage system.”

We can just about hear a chorus of well kept and well fed ones, “All this is wrong,” “You will thus overthrow all established usages, laws, customs and institutions.”

But the conscious worker who knows what springs guide the minds and mouths of the maintained ones shout, “Hosanna! That is right! More power to you!”

“These are ideas subversive to our civilization, they strike at the very roots of things, they endanger the rights of private property upon which our Republic is based,” hints the owner of industries, the exploiter and despoiler of labor.

“Against all laws, constitution, precedents and authority, it's a conspiracy; yes, sedition, treason,” says the man in legal vesture.

“Free lovers and enemies of institutions long established and respected,” thunders the moralist who may be drawing his rents from gay houses.

“They would destroy our union and en-danger the amicable relations now existing between employers and employees,” croaks the “labor leader” of the craft union.

“For the interest of civilization, that society may be saved and in line with our duties, the place for folks holding such dangerous notions is the jail,” cry the police.

“Lynch them,” shouts the whole motley crew who benefit greatly from the present economic arrangement.

“Amen,” sanctimoniously grumbles the black-robed hypocrite who alleges to be the minister of God and a follower of the Lowly Nazarene.

And thus society is defended, saved and blessed.

This motley crew would be indeed ungrateful if they would not offer their defense and hosannas to a society that is so generous to them as to feed and clothe them with the best and yet require no labor from them.

As long as one class performs no function in production only as parasites and social sponges, is too lazy and impotent to work, but lives and riots in plenty—and our class, the wealth producers—produce all, makes all, digs all the coal; in a word, makes life worth while and brings into being by its labor and travail all that life necessitates, and yet lives in want, is paid wages which at best and highest only represents a part of the entire product; a struggle is inevitable.

Those who are serious and who respect themselves and their education will not dispute that labor with its hands and brains produces all wealth. We industrial unionists hold, and every day experiences tend eloquently to prove and convince all that our contention is correct.

In the ratio as capitalists grow stronger and more secure in their ownership of industry, more and more parasitical in production; they also grow arrogant with the feeling and satiety of power; they become tyrannical in their conduct towards the workers; just in that ratio the laboring class develops, in power by virtue of the great numbers assembled together in various industries, in consciousness by the experiences and lessons it receives in its daily struggle for more bread and greater economic rights. Its vision extends further than mere shorter hours, higher wages and matters of that nature.

It acquires class feelings, class knowledge and conceptions with a realization that, struggle as it may, gain as many victories as possible; the age-long class conflict can only come to an end when “the workers of the world organize as a class,” change society from the very basis through the medium and power of their industrial organization and keep on producing wealth, not as hitherto, only for the partial benefit of the producers, but on the principle that “Labor is the producer of all social wealth, therefore, to the producers belongs the full product of their efforts.”

Unquestionably from the standpoint of the coupon clippers and their retainers, anything the workers do that either tends to merely obtain more bread or any efforts that tend to unsaddle the masters altogether is considered wrong, ethically, legally, religiously and by every other measurement.

From the standpoint of the masters those who aid, abet and sanctify their right to plunder the workers are considered paragons of virtue and good citizenship.

A scab who works while men and women are struggling for humane conditions is hailed as a true type of “an American hero.” Those who willingly work for low wages, satisfied to work long hours under miserable conditions, never even whimper, refuse to band with their fellows in a common effort to better things, are styled “The independent American citizen who refuses to allow the pernicious doctrines of labor agitators to sway them from their patriotic duties,” etc. The judges, the procurators of the State, the police and soldiers, who shoot, club and imprison in the interest of capitalist property and social interests are hailed as the “Saviors of Society.” Those who, under the cloak of religion and alleged loyalty of the Nazarene, offer prayers to the rich and command the poor to be satisfied with their lot on earth, who apologize and offer extenuations for child labor in the mines and factories—are set up as the very pillars and columns of Order, Law and Religion.

But if history teaches right, we know this much—right and wrong are relative terms —and it all resolves into a question of Power. Cold, unsentimental Power. From the standpoint of accepted law, morals, religion, etc., the capitalists are considered right and justified in their control and ownership of industries and exploitation of labor because they have the means to hire, and have organized a gang that skulks under the name of “Law, Order and Authority,” that is well paid and well kept to interpret and execute laws in favor of the paymasters of course.

Our country has been ravaged and stolen by industrial pirates and yet, learned judges have decreed that it was “legal.” Attorneys and politicians have written lengthy briefs and argued long and eloquently, preachers have spoken wise sermons; in short, whatever the king has done, the courtiers have most humbly considered right and the guards and men-at-arms been ready to see that the slaves did not rebel against it all.

Prepared to carry out the capitalists' every will, this kept-crew is well paid, entrenched and armed, and while it hides under the silk skirts of Mesdames “Law and Order,” is as desperate and brutal a crew as ever scuttled a ship or quartered a man.

Yet with this alone Capitalism could not live.

It is the false conception and consciousness of the vast majority of the workers who hold up the hands of the master class, and in their ignorance look upon the rich as the symbols of all that is virtuous, noble and wise, while if they were conscious of the facts they would look upon private property of socially necessary things as the great social crime and the owners and upholders as so many social criminals, that makes it possible for it to live.

New conceptions of Right and Wrong must generate and permeate the workers. We must look on conduct and actions that advance the social and economic position of the working class as Right, ethically, legally, religiously, socially and by every other measurement. That conduct and those actions which aid, helps to maintain and gives comfort to the capitalist class, we must consider as Wrong by every standard.

The wage system implies the existence of two economic classes. Under it the workers suffer, it means no end of strife, therefore from the standpoint of the workers it is Wrong and it is Right to get together as a class and abolish the wage system, and in its place erect the Co-operative Common-wealth, the Rule of the Proletariat.

"We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class.”

Because they may have some skill and look upon it as so much property, some workers in the past have organized into trade unions; that is, a union for each separate trade. This system of unionism is typified by the American Federation of Labor. It is an organization of one separate union for each trade, although trades may be employed in the same factory or industry.

It is a “unionism” that may have been good enough in its day, when learning a trade was necessary and the vast majority of the workers were required to be crafts-men. The trade unions were useful in their day, same as the ox cart was useful and most essential; yes, of utmost utility in transportation, but it had to make way for something more efficient.

With the ever greater development of machinery and concentration of industries, trade lines are erased, the workers more and more are reduced to one common level of labor and servitude.

The capitalists—not because of any spirit or feeling of Solidarity, but in the struggle among themselves for the products they steal from labor have been driven to concentrate their economic power into huge industries, and in turn the small citizen alliance has made way for the One Manufacturers' Association or Employers' Association. They have done away with the trade lines. Their associations are not composed of employers exploiting the workers of one trade, but covers the exploitation of workers of every trade in the industry. So that the “trade union” has become obsolete and now only manages to live on the recollections and bonds of age and traditions.

"The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars.”

With the pernicious system of each trade organizing and looking out for itself, signing contracts and agreements with the employers that bind the workers of a certain craft for a definite and long term of years to work certain hours under certain conditions for certain wages without taking into account and consideration the rest of the workers in the same establishment or industry, workers are divided and defeated.

Experience and history for the past few years abound with instances where workers organized into trade unions in spite of themselves, helped the employers defeat other workers, organized as well as unorganized, skilled as well as unskilled. Cases are too numerous to mention where we have witnessed one set of “union men” scab on another set of workers, also unionists, who were struggling for better conditions. Yes, we call it scabbing, union workers remained at work alongside of strikebreakers, aided, abetted and gave comfort, even to the hauling and furnishing food to scabs in strike-bound places.

We call such conduct by its proper name, hideous as it may sound, the “pure and simple” trade union “leaders” call it “non-interference” or “trade autonomy.”

"Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the workers have interests in common with their employers.”

Trade unions invariably are pledged to the program of the “co-operation of the classes” and prate of the community and identity of interests between laborers and capitalists. The leaders are always talking of the “brotherhood of capital and labor.”

Out of such dangerous teachings comes the justification and the annual feasts, the Civic Federation dinners at the Waldorf Astoria (New York City), where captains of industry, men like Andrew Carnegie, August Belmont and a host of other labor exploiters, whose opposition to the efforts and hopes of labor is well known and has been marked in historical instances, meet in jolly and sumptuous feast with Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, John Tobin of the Boot and Shoe Workers, John Golden of the United Textile Workers, and so on ad infinitum et nauseam.

They gather presumably to “discuss and help to solve the labor problems” but in fact to partake of the flesh pots they have stripped from labor, to pull the wool over the eyes of the wage workers so that the chains of wage labor may be linked ever more secure on the limbs of our class, that our hopes and ideals may be dragged in the mire and capitalists given assurance of a long day more of safe and contented slavery on the part of the wealth producers.

And now when the history and objects of the Civic Federation have become notorious and its evil practices and outrages are evoking from the many times defeated and betrayed workers curses and protests that reach to the heavens, a second edition of the Civic Federation has been organized under the name of the “Militia of Christ.” Conceived in the sacristy, born on the floor of the St. Louis, Mo. (1910) convention of the American Federation of Labor, held at baptism by preachers and labor leaders, it is a new conjure to keep the workers in a mental stupor and economic slavery.

“These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any industry or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an in-jury to one an injury to all.”

The Industrial Workers of the World is the “organization formed in such a way.” The I. W. W. does not organize by trades, but by industries. All the workers in any plant, factory, mine, mill or any given industry in a given locality organize in one Local Industrial Union. All the local industrial unions of a given general industry are banded together in the National Industrial Union. The National Industrial Unions are banded again stronger in the Industrial Department and then all Departments, six in all, are brought under one head, the General Administration of the I. W. W. One Big Union of all workers, welded together in such a manner that, imbued with the war cry “an injury to one is an injury to all,” all its members can act together in fighting the common enemy.

Industrial Unionists disdain to lower the history and ideals of the working class by entering into contracts or agreements with employers whereby the conditions that are generally forced by the stronger economic power are made a basis for any stated period.

The workers in order to uphold what they are able to wrest from employers must be ever alert and ready with weapons that spell Solidarity and if they wish to advance further, their union must be an army ready to move on short notice and take quick decisions, otherwise it is lost. To be able to do these things it must be free not only in limbs but mentally. Contracts and agreements tend to foist a false feeling of security on the worker and on the day of need—defeat looms up because of the false security—lack of preparations.

"Instead of the conservative motto, 'A fair day's wages for a fair day's work' we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition of the wage system.'"

As we have stated before there is no gain-saying that Labor produces all wealth. Capitalism is based on the robbery of the workers. Those who own industries but do not work in them, pay wages to the workers and keep profits to themselves. But both, profit and wages, are only the product of Labor. Wages are part of the total product paid to labor. Profit, generally the biggest part, capitalists appropriate to themselves and call it their “legal share.”

Industrial Unionists know nothing of “legal share” nor of “reasonable profits,” as all wealth, however little, acquired with-out labor is robbery. Industrial Unionists know no bargain to life. To talk of a “fair day's work” is to talk of the pack horse with a fair load on his back; to talk of a “fair day's wage” is to talk of a reasonably filled nose bag for the horse that has done the packing.

“Fair day's work and fair day's wages” imply a question of right and wrong. How-ever, this is a class society composed and divided in robbers and robbed and each class has its own notion of right and wrong, fair and unfair. At any rate, if labor produces all wealth—what else is a fair day's work except the one the workers will legislate in their union hall stating how many hours to work and that fair payment will be the en-tire products to the producers?

Let a sordid and conservative world talk itself out of its senses and be exploited to the marrow by capitalists. Let the paraders keep on their banner the motto of the middle ages guilds “a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.”

We workers of the twentieth century will march steady with heads erect, our hearts beating in unison and resolved with our aim fixed on the new society and on our standard unfurled to the free breeze, we have in-scribed the rallying cry and glowing hope of the world's workers, “LABOR IS ENTITLED TO ALL IT PRODUCES.”

"It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been over-thrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.”

Such are “dangerous” notions to capitalism. The Industrial Workers of the World propagates these very ideas, it has and will continue—of this we feel sure and satisfied—to meet with the opposition of the employing class. It is to be expected. Such a course on their part but proves the correctness of our principles.

The employers well realize that once the workers begin to seriously organize as a class, with class hopes and ideals, and look out for themselves as a class, with interests distinct and opposed to all other classes, that once the spirit of solidarity takes firm hold in the hearts and minds of the workers, their (capitalists) occupation as parasites will be gone. The danger and fear of having to go to work to live is an ever recurring night-mare that occurs to them ever in their hours of great revelry and riot. They would if reduced to extremes, be willing to make any concession always with the feeling that they can successfully juggle matters so as to keep in the saddle. Therefore is accounted their readiness to look with favor to movements that do not aim at changing the economic relations between wage workers and capitalists.

Compromise for pelf and power has been the one great weapon of the capitalists even in their own day of struggle against the then economic and ruling class. It is a weapon and a means whereby they seduce the rebellious spirit of the workers. A time serving policy. They have cause to fear and dread at the rule of labor.

But you, fellow workers in labor, comrades in suffering, what have you to fear from such program?

You, the hundreds of thousands, aye the millions, who have no shops, no mines, no mills, no land, no home!

You, whose constant companion is want and poverty, whose lot is long hours of hard work for meagre pay, who have only your labor power — yourselves — to sell to a master — in the labor market that is ever crowded — as the only means of making a living.

You, a member of the working class, that produces annually an average of $2,400.00 worth of wealth and receives less than $450.00 in wages.

You workers, whose sisters, wives and mothers have been driven out of the homes into mills and factories to compete with you and bring your wages down.

You, whose children have been driven out of the playground and kidnapped from the schoolhouse and strapped to the machine in the mills and shops, that their young lives, their very laughter and joy denied, may be rolled and coined into so many dollars for the pleasure and satisfaction of a few Industrial Herods.

You, of the wage working class, of whom it was required that in one year over forty thousand workers — men, women and children — should be killed in the industries of this nation, burned to death as in the Triangle fire of New York City, their lives snuffed out in coal mine explosions and in a thousand various ways.

The blood of these workers, it seems, was needed to grease and spur the machines in the mills of our masters. Their lives sacrificed all because human beings are cheaper than the application of safety appliances which cost money and would reduce profits; and, since the great God to whom capitalists offer their prayers is PROFIT, human life is destroyed and workshops are turned into so many charnel houses.

So we ask you who, when you are no longer able to live, you ask for more pay and are forced to strike and in reply to your petitions and pleading for more bread receive bayonet thrusts, rifle shots, etc., “What have you, any of you, to lose by opposing the present economic system, banding yourselves with us in one common bond of Solidarity and devotion as industrial unionists to the end of bettering our every-day conditions in the factories, mines and mills?”

What have any of us to lose if we band together in ONE BIG UNION to the end and by it as a medium transform the present system of industrial despotism and economic inequality into one of Industrial Freedom and Equality?

We would lose our chains, our miseries, but gain the world for all the workers, a world fit for men and women to live their lives in freedom of love and labor.

Our opponents may say that this would be “expropriation,” but we will let the poet reply for us :
The Cry of Toil

We have fed you all for a thousand years,
And you hail us till unfed,
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the worker's dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest,
And you lie on a crimson wool.
For if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Good God, we ha' paid it in full!

There's never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you.
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew.
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin.
If blood be the price of your accursed wealth,
Good God, we ha' paid it in!

We have fed you all for a thousand years,
For that was our doom, you know,
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike of a week ago,
You ha' eaten our lives and our babes and wives,
And we're told it's your legal share,
But if the blood be the price of your lawful wealth,
Good God, we ha' bought it fair!

Industrial Unionism bids all workers rally to its standard. To all sons and daughters of toil who yearn for a better day we appeal for Solidarity.

Let a sordid crowd of kept men and women imbued with sordid ideals oppose this new redeeming movement of labor—it is bound to succeed in spite of all opposition, whether it be that which show its hideous form in the uniform of the hired and armed Hessians with rifle in hand, or it intrigues and conjures under the cloak of Law, Authority, Order, Religion, et al., or even under the greasy smile and brass face of the "labor leader.” This is the movement of the common workers and will triumph. It has received its baptism of fire in a dozen hard-fought battles from one end of this broad land to the other. It knows no retreat, this intrepid army, heretofore fighting against great odds, that at all times tested the capacity and devotion of its members, has been ignored and made small of.

But in spite of all opposition it has not shirked a battle yet, and will keep up its determination never to stop until the oriflamme of labor shall float over a world of free work shops where freemen and women will in love and freedom produce wealth for their own benefit as Workers.

Oh, Workers! Band together.
Organize! Organize Right!
Organize your Power!
Organize for Victory!

Speed the day of labor emancipation. Industrial Freedom, Labor, Liberty, Love and Happiness for all who toil.

A little Trot for the occasion...take what you want and leave the rest as they say...

http://www.marxist.com/the-class-str...king-class.htm

The Class Struggle and the American Working Class

I fail to see how this relates to your scatter-shot complaints. In fact, quite the opposite...


What is lacking, however, is the necessary leadership. A Marxist revolutionary party represents the most advanced layer of the working class. It serves as the historical memory and concentrates the collective experience of our class internationally; it serves as a transmission belt, bringing the lessons of the past to the struggles of today. The tragic lesson of the 20th century is that without theoretical and historical clarity, without organization and discipline, we will not be able to defeat our class enemy. This is why we study Marxist theory and history.

Here's another starting point that cuts to the chase...

1) If "Socialism" has any meaning at all, it is as a political movement rooted in the real world and centered on the property question. Though it sounds simple, that statement alone begins the task of criticism - of taking all that is presented ad hoc and without form, and making sense of it. Old man Marx is a stake in the ground in that process. He is unique in the completeness of his "system" and the rigor of his analysis. As such, almost everything ends up being compared to him and properly so because he is probably the dead man best equipped to defend himself against the living. "Are we not allowed to criticize Marx?", you ask. Of course, and he can be wrong. What do you want to "criticize"? "Well, I don't know but I want to make sure I have that 'right' in case I run into something", you answer. I am not sure where such a right would derive from and who could deny it but have at it... The attempt itself is useful in developing the precision of the debate. In truth, Marx has proven to be unusually resistant to the "Well, it seems to me...", school of social theory these past 150 years.

2) Marx is key to the development of philosophy as a "martial art". Most people I know came to an actual study of Marxism in exactly this way. It sure comes in handy in a union negotiation when the company has lawyers and cash gushing out of their ass and you are by yourself, and the local is demoralized, and you know damn well you can't survive a strike... and so on. The unfortunate part of this is that as a martial art, it is far closer to Tai Chi than it is to Karate - i.e. you can't kick your neighbor's ass with it after a couple of months of diligent study.

As to "shifts in perspective" which bring people "toward Marx", I think life does that. Certainly, no reading or loyalty oaths are required but they do kinda evolve naturally...

I think that the hurdle that most people must pass is not in Marx or Marxism or Socialism or Communism but in the very unsettling thought that there is nothing in the existing social system that is accurately portrayed and nothing within its bounds that may be employed to change that. Get comfortable with that "revolutionary kernel" and old Karl is a breeze.

--Anaxarchos

Again, what you post is irrelevant to the arguments you're making. Trying to put Anax in your camp is a sad expedient and a fail. I think you need a break. Thirty days. If ya return please bring something besides 'anything but communism' because that's all you've shown us.

bp, 'Stalinist'

G.V. Plekhanov

Anarchism and Socialism

CHAPTER VII
The Smaller Fry

(Dhal - I have to admit, I really like that subtitle, "Small Fry". It just seems to fit so well.)


Among our present-day Anarchists some, like John Mackay, the author of Die Anarchisten, Kulturgemalde aus dem Ende des xix. Jahrhunderts, declare for individualism, while others – by far the more numerous – call themselves Communists. These are the descendants of Bakounine in the Anarchist movement. They have produced a fairly considerable literature in various languages, and it is they who are making so much noise with the help of the “propaganda by deed.” The prophet of this school is the Russian refugee, P.A. Kropotkine.

I shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the Individualist-Anarchists of today, whom even their brethren, the Communist-Anarchists, look upon as “bourgeois.” We will go straight on to the Anarchist-“Communist.”

What is the standpoint of this new species of Communism? “As to the method followed by the Anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that of the Utopists,” Kropotkine assures us. “The Anarchist thinker does not resort to metaphysical conceptions (like ’natural rights,’ the ’duties of the State’ and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best conditions for realizing the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows, on the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of evolution. He studies human society as it is now, and was in the past; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate individuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of co-operation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries to discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which direction evolution goes.”

So the Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with the Utopians. They do not, in the elaborating of their “ideal,” turn to metaphysical conceptions like “natural rights,” “duties of the State,” etc. Is this really so?

So far as the “duties of the State” are concerned, Kropotkine is quite right; it would be too absurd if the Anarchists invited the State to disappear in the name of its own “duties.” But as to “natural rights” he is altogether mistaken. A few quotations will suffice to prove this.

Already in the Bulletin de la Federation Jurasienne (No.3, 1877), we find the following very significant declaration: “The sovereignty of the people can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals and of groups.” This “most completely autonomy,” is it not also a “metaphysical conception”?

The Bulletin de la Fédération Jurasienne was an organ of Collectivist Anarchism. At bottom there is no difference between “Collectivist” and “Communist” Anarchism. And yet, since it might be that we are making the Communists responsible for the Collectivists, let us glance at the “Communist” publications, not only according to the spirit but the letter. In the autumn of 1892 a few “companions” appeared before the Assize Court of Versailles in consequence of a theft of dynamite at Soisy-sous-Etiolles, Among others there was one G. Etiévant, who drew up a declaration of Anarchist-Communist principles. The tribunal would not allow him to read it, whereupon the official organ of the Anarchists, La Révolte, undertook to publish this declaration, having taken great pains to secure an absolutely correct copy of the original. The Declaration of G. Etievant made a sensation in the Anarchist world, and even “cultured” men like Octave Mirbeau quote it with respect along with the works of the “theorists,” Bakounine, Kropotkine, the “unequalled Proudhon,” and the “aristocratic Spencer” (!). Now this is the line of Etiévant’s reasoning:

No idea is innate in us; each idea is born of infinitely diverse and multiple sensations, which we receive by means of our organs. Every act of the individual is the result of one or several ideas. The man is not therefore responsible. In order that responsibility should exist, will would have to determine the sensations, just as these determine the idea, and the idea, the act. But as it is, on the contrary, the sensations which determine the will, all judgment becomes impossible, every reward, every punishment unjust, however great the good or the evil done may be. “Thus one cannot judge men and acts unless one has a sufficient criterion. Now no such criterion exists. At any rate it is not in the laws that it could be found, for true justice is immutable and laws are changeable. It is with laws as with all the rest (!). For if laws are beneficent what is the good of deputies and senators to change them? And if they are bad what is the good of magistrates to apply them?”

Having thus “demonstrated” “liberty,” Etiévant passes on to “equality.”

From the zoophytes to men, all beings are provided with more or less perfect organs destined to serve them. All these beings have therefore the right to make use of their organs according to the evident will of mother Nature. “So for our legs we have the right to all the space they can traverse; for our lungs to all the air we can breathe; for our stomach to all the food we can digest; for our brain to all we can think, or assimilate of the thoughts of others; for our faculty of elocution to all we can say; for our ears to all we can hear; and we have a right to all this because we have a right to life, and because all this constitutes life. These are the true rights of man ! No need to decree them, they exist as the sun exists. They are written in no constitution, in no law, but they are inscribed in ineffaceable letters in the great book of Nature and are imprescriptible. From the cheese-mite to the elephant, from the blade of grass to the oak, from the atom to the star, everything proclaims it.”

If these are not “metaphysical conceptions,” and of the very worst type, a miserable caricature of the metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth century, if this is the “philosophy of evolution,” then we must confess that it has nothing in common with the scientific movement of our day.

Let us hear another authority, and quote the now famous book of Jean Grave, La societe mourante et l’Anarchie, which was recently condemned by French judges, who thought it dangerous, while it is only supremely ridiculous.

“Anarchy means the negation of authority. Now, Government claims to base the legitimacy of its existence upon the necessity of defending social institutions: the family, religion, property, etc. It has created a vast machinery in order to assure its exercise and its sanction. The chief are: the law, the magistracy, the army, the legislature, executive powers, etc. So that the Anarchist idea, forced to reply to everything, was obliged to attack all social prejudices, to become thoroughly penetrated by all human knowledge, in order to demonstrate that its conceptions were in harmony with the physiological and psychological nature of man, and in harmony with the observance of natural laws, while our actual organization has been established in contravention of all logic and all good sense..... Thus, in combating authority, it has been necessary for the Anarchists to attack all the institutions which the Government defends, the necessity for which it tries to demonstrate in order to legitimate its own existence.”

You see what was “the development” of the “Anarchist Idea.” This Idea “denied” authority. In order to defend itself, authority appealed to the family, religion, property. Then the “Idea” found itself forced to attack institutions, which it had not, apparently, noticed before, and at the same time the “Idea,” in order to make the most of its “conceptions,” penetrated to the very depths of all human knowledge (it is an ill wind that does not blow some good!) All this is only the result of chance, of the unexpected turn given by “authority” to the discussion that had arisen between itself and the “Idea.”

It seems to us that however rich in human knowledge it may be now, the “Anarchist Idea” is not at all communistic; it keeps its knowledge to itself, and leaves the poor “companions” in complete ignorance. It is all very well for Kropotkine to sing the praises of the “Anarchist thinker”; he will never be able to prove that his friend Grave has been able to rise even a little above the feeblest metaphysics.

Kropotkine should read over again the Anarchist pamphlets of Elisée Reclus – a great “theorist” this – and then, quite seriously tell us if he finds anything else in them but appeals to “justice,” “liberty,” and other “metaphysical conceptions.”

Finally, Kropotkine himself is not so emancipated from metaphysics as he fancies he is. Far from it! Here, e.g., is what he said at the general meeting of the Federation of the Jura, on the 12th October, 1879, at Chaux-de-Fonds:–

“There was a time when they denied Anarchists even the right to existence. The General Council of the International treated us as factious, the press as dreamers; almost all treated us as fools; this time is past. The Anarchist party has proved its vitality; it has surmounted the obstacles of every kind that impeded its development; today it is accepted.” [By whom!] “To attain to this, it has been necessary, above all else, for the party to hold its own in the domain of theory, to establish its ideal of the society of the future, to prove that this ideal is the best; to do more than this – to prove that this ideal is not the product of the dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas. This work has been done,” etc. ...

The hunt after the best ideal of the society of the future, is not this the Utopian method “par excellence”? It is true that Kropotkine tries to prove “that this ideal is not the product of dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas.” But what Utopian has not tried to prove this equally with himself? Everything depends upon the value of the proofs, and here our amiable compatriot is infinitely weaker than the great Utopians whom he treats as metaphysicians, while he himself has not the least notion of the actual methods of modern social science. But before examining the value of these “proofs,” let us make the acquaintance of the “ideal” itself. What is Kropotkine’s conception of Anarchist society?

Pre-occupied with the reorganizing of the governmental machine, the revolutionist-politicans, the “Jacobins” (Kropotkine detests the Jacobins even more than our amiable Empress, Catherine II, detested them) allowed the people to die of hunger. The Anarchists will act differently. They will destroy the State, and will urge on the people to the expropriation of the rich. Once this expropriation accomplished, an “inventory” of the common wealth will be made, and the “distribution” of it organized. Everything will be done by the people themselves. “Just give the people elbow room, and in a week the business of the food supply will proceed with admirable regularity. Only one who has never seen the hard-working people at their labor, only one who has buried himself in documents, could doubt this. Speak of the organizing capacity of the Great Misunderstood, the People, to those who have.seen them at Paris on the days of the barricades” (which is certainly not the case of Kropotkine) “or in London at the time of the last great strike, when they had to feed half a million starving people, and they will tell you how superior the people is to all the hide-bound officials.”

The basis upon which the enjoyment in common of the food. supply is to be organized will be very fair, and not at all “Jacobin.” There is but one, and only one, which is consistent with sentiments of justice, and is really practical. The taking in heaps from what one possesses abundance of! Rationing out what must be measured, divided ! Out of 350 millions who inhabit Europe, 200 millions still follow this perfectly natural practice – which proves, among other things, that the Anarchist ideal “flows from the popular aspirations.”

It is the same with regard to housing and clothing. The people will organize everything according to the same rule. There will be an upheaval; that is certain. Only this upheaval must not become mere loss, it must be reduced to a minimum. And it is again – we cannot repeat it too often – by turning to those immediately interested and not to bureaucrats that the least amount of inconvenience will be inflicted upon everybody.”

Thus from the beginning of the revolution we shall have an “organization”; the whims of sovereign “individuals” will be kept within reasonable bounds by the wants of society, by the logic of the situation. And, nevertheless, we shall be in the midst of full-blown Anarchy; individual liberty will be safe and sound. This seems incredible, but it is true; there is anarchy, and there is organization, there are obligatory rules for everyone, and yet everyone does what he likes. You do not follow? ’Tis simple enough. This organization-it is not the “authoritarian” revolutionists who will have created it; – these rules, obligatory upon all, and yet anarchical, it is the People, the Great Misunderstood, who will have proclaimed them, and the People are very knowing as anyone who has seen, – what Kropatkine never had the opportunity of seeing – days of barricade riots, knows.”

But if the Great Misunderstood had the stupidity to create the “bureaux” so detested of Kropotkine? If, as it did in March, 1871, it gave itself a revolutionary Government? Then we shall say the people is mistaken, and shall try to bring it back to a better state of mind, and if need be we will throw a few bombs at the “hidebound officials.” We will call upon the People to organize, and will destroy all the organs it may provide itself with.

This then is the way in which we realize the excellent Anarchist ideal – in imagination. In the name of the liberty of individuals all action of the individuals is done away with, and in the name of the People we get rid of the whole class of revolutionists; the individuals are drowned in the mass. If you can only get used to this logical process, you meet with no more difficulties, and you can boast that you are neither “authoriatarian” nor “Utopian.” What could be easier, what more pleasant?

But in order to consume, it is necessary to produce. Kropotkine knows this so well that he reads the “authoritarian” Marx a lesson on the subject.

“The evil of the present organization is not in that the ’surplus value’ of production passes over to the capitalist – as Rodbertus and Marx had contended – thus narrowing down the Socialist conception, and the general ideas on the capitalist regime. Surplus value itself is only a consequence of more profound causes. The evil is that there can be any kind of ’surplus value,’ instead of a surplus not consumed by each generation; for, in order that there may be ’surplus value,’ men, women, and children must be obliged by hunger to sell their labor powers, for a trifling portion of what these powers produce, and, especially of what they are capable of producing.” [Poor Marx, who knew nothing of all these profound truths, although so confusedly expounded by the learned Prince!] ... “It does not, indeed, suffice to distribute in equal shares the profits realized in one industry, if, at the same time, one has to exploit thousands of other workers. The point is to produce with the smallest possible expenditure of human labor-power the greatest possible amount of products necessary for the well being of all.”

Ignorant Marxists that we are! We have never heard that a Socialist society pre-supposes a systematic organization of production. Since it is Kropotkine who reveals this to us, it is only reasonable that we should turn to him to know what this organization will be like. On this subject also he has some very interesting things to say.

“Imagine a Society comprising several million inhabitants engaged in agriculture, and a great variety of industries – Paris, for example, with the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Imagine that in this Society all children learn to work with their hand as well as with their brain. Admit, in fine, that all adults, with the exception of the women occupied with the education of children, undertake to work five hours a day from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and that they spend this time in any occupations they choose, in no matter what branch of human labor considered necessary. Such a Society could, in return, guarantee well-being to all its members, i.e., far greater comfort than that enjoyed by the bourgeoisie today. And every worker in this Society would moreover have at his disposal at least five hours a day, which he could devote to science, to art, and to those individual needs that do not come within the category of necessities, while later on, when the productive forces of man have augmented, everything may be introduced into this category that is still today looked upon as a luxury or unattainable.”

In Anarchist Society there will be no authority, but there will be the “Contract” (oh! immortal Monsieur Proudhon, here you are again; we see all still goes well with you!) by virtue of which the infinitely free individuals “agree” to work in such or such a “free commune.” The contract is justice, liberty, equality; it is Proudhon, Kropotkine, and all the Saints. But, at the same time, do not trifle with the contract ! It is a thing not so destitute of means to defend itself as would seem. Indeed, suppose the signatory of a contract freely made does not wish to fulfil his duty? He is driven forth from the free commune, and he runs the risk of dying of hunger – which is not a particularly gay outlook.

I suppose a group of a certain number of volunteers combining in some enterprise, to secure the success of which all rival each other in zeal, with the exception of one associate, who frequently absents himself from his post. Should they, on his account, dissolve the group, appoint a president who would inflict fines, or else, like the Academy, distribute attendance-counters ? It is evident that we shall do neither the one nor the other, but that one day the comrade who threatens to jeopardize the enterprise will be told: “My friend, we should have been glad to work with you, but as you are often absent from your post, or do your work negligently, we must part. Go and look for other comrades who will put up with your off-hand ways.” This is pretty strong at bottom; but note how appearances are saved, how very “Anarchist” is his language. Really, we should not be at all surprised if in the “Anarchist-Communist” society people were guillotined by persuasion, or, at any rate, by virtue of a freely-made contract.

But farther, this very Anarchist method of dealing with lazy “free individuals” is perfectly “natural,” and “is practiced everywhere today in all industries, in competition with every possible system of fines, stoppages from wages, espionage, etc.; the workman may go to his shop at the regular hour, but if he does his work badly, if he interferes with his comrades by his laziness or other faults, if they fall out, it is all over. He is obliged to leave the workshop.” Thus is the Anarchist “Ideal” in complete harmony with the “tendencies” of capitalist society.

For the rest, such strong measures as these will be extremely rare. Delivered from the yoke of the State and capitalist exploitation, individuals will of their own free motion set themselves to supply the wants of the great All of society. Everything will be done by means of “free arrangement”.

“Well, Citizens, let others preach industrial barracks, and the convent of ‘Authoritarian’ Communism, we declare that the tendency of societies is in the opposite direction. We see millions and millions of groups constituting themselves freely in order to satisfy all the varied wants of human beings, groups formed, some by districts, by streets, by houses; others holding out hands across the walls (!) of cities, of frontiers, of oceans. All made up of human beings freely seeking one another, and having done their work as producers, associating themselves, to consume, or to produce articles of luxury, or to turn science into a new direction. This is the tendency of the nineteenth century, and we are following it; we ask only to develop it freely, without let or hindrance on the part of governments. Liberty for the individual! ’Take some pebbles,’ said Fourier, ’put them into a box and shake them; they will arrange themselves into a mosaic such as you could never succeed in producing if you told off some one to arrange them harmoniously.’”

A wit has said that the profession of faith of the Anarchists reduces itself to two articles of a fantastic law: (1) There shall he nothing. (2) No one is charged with carrying out the above article. This is not correct. The Anarchists say:

(1) There shall be everything. (2) No one is held responsible for seeing that there is anything at all.

This is a very seductive “Ideal”, but its realization is unfortunately very improbable.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1895/anarch/ch07.htm

There is so much more at this piece. Plekhanov just knocks it outa the park.

G.V. Plekhanov

Anarchism and Socialism

CHAPTER VII
The Smaller Fry

(Dhal - I have to admit, I really like that subtitle, "Small Fry". It just seems to fit so well.)


Among our present-day Anarchists some, like John Mackay, the author of Die Anarchisten, Kulturgemalde aus dem Ende des xix. Jahrhunderts, declare for individualism, while others – by far the more numerous – call themselves Communists. These are the descendants of Bakounine in the Anarchist movement. They have produced a fairly considerable literature in various languages, and it is they who are making so much noise with the help of the “propaganda by deed.” The prophet of this school is the Russian refugee, P.A. Kropotkine.

I shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the Individualist-Anarchists of today, whom even their brethren, the Communist-Anarchists, look upon as “bourgeois.” We will go straight on to the Anarchist-“Communist.”

What is the standpoint of this new species of Communism? “As to the method followed by the Anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that of the Utopists,” Kropotkine assures us. “The Anarchist thinker does not resort to metaphysical conceptions (like ’natural rights,’ the ’duties of the State’ and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best conditions for realizing the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows, on the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of evolution. He studies human society as it is now, and was in the past; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate individuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of co-operation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries to discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which direction evolution goes.”

So the Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with the Utopians. They do not, in the elaborating of their “ideal,” turn to metaphysical conceptions like “natural rights,” “duties of the State,” etc. Is this really so?

So far as the “duties of the State” are concerned, Kropotkine is quite right; it would be too absurd if the Anarchists invited the State to disappear in the name of its own “duties.” But as to “natural rights” he is altogether mistaken. A few quotations will suffice to prove this.

Already in the Bulletin de la Federation Jurasienne (No.3, 1877), we find the following very significant declaration: “The sovereignty of the people can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals and of groups.” This “most completely autonomy,” is it not also a “metaphysical conception”?

The Bulletin de la Fédération Jurasienne was an organ of Collectivist Anarchism. At bottom there is no difference between “Collectivist” and “Communist” Anarchism. And yet, since it might be that we are making the Communists responsible for the Collectivists, let us glance at the “Communist” publications, not only according to the spirit but the letter. In the autumn of 1892 a few “companions” appeared before the Assize Court of Versailles in consequence of a theft of dynamite at Soisy-sous-Etiolles, Among others there was one G. Etiévant, who drew up a declaration of Anarchist-Communist principles. The tribunal would not allow him to read it, whereupon the official organ of the Anarchists, La Révolte, undertook to publish this declaration, having taken great pains to secure an absolutely correct copy of the original. The Declaration of G. Etievant made a sensation in the Anarchist world, and even “cultured” men like Octave Mirbeau quote it with respect along with the works of the “theorists,” Bakounine, Kropotkine, the “unequalled Proudhon,” and the “aristocratic Spencer” (!). Now this is the line of Etiévant’s reasoning:

No idea is innate in us; each idea is born of infinitely diverse and multiple sensations, which we receive by means of our organs. Every act of the individual is the result of one or several ideas. The man is not therefore responsible. In order that responsibility should exist, will would have to determine the sensations, just as these determine the idea, and the idea, the act. But as it is, on the contrary, the sensations which determine the will, all judgment becomes impossible, every reward, every punishment unjust, however great the good or the evil done may be. “Thus one cannot judge men and acts unless one has a sufficient criterion. Now no such criterion exists. At any rate it is not in the laws that it could be found, for true justice is immutable and laws are changeable. It is with laws as with all the rest (!). For if laws are beneficent what is the good of deputies and senators to change them? And if they are bad what is the good of magistrates to apply them?”

Having thus “demonstrated” “liberty,” Etiévant passes on to “equality.”

From the zoophytes to men, all beings are provided with more or less perfect organs destined to serve them. All these beings have therefore the right to make use of their organs according to the evident will of mother Nature. “So for our legs we have the right to all the space they can traverse; for our lungs to all the air we can breathe; for our stomach to all the food we can digest; for our brain to all we can think, or assimilate of the thoughts of others; for our faculty of elocution to all we can say; for our ears to all we can hear; and we have a right to all this because we have a right to life, and because all this constitutes life. These are the true rights of man ! No need to decree them, they exist as the sun exists. They are written in no constitution, in no law, but they are inscribed in ineffaceable letters in the great book of Nature and are imprescriptible. From the cheese-mite to the elephant, from the blade of grass to the oak, from the atom to the star, everything proclaims it.”

If these are not “metaphysical conceptions,” and of the very worst type, a miserable caricature of the metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth century, if this is the “philosophy of evolution,” then we must confess that it has nothing in common with the scientific movement of our day.

Let us hear another authority, and quote the now famous book of Jean Grave, La societe mourante et l’Anarchie, which was recently condemned by French judges, who thought it dangerous, while it is only supremely ridiculous.

“Anarchy means the negation of authority. Now, Government claims to base the legitimacy of its existence upon the necessity of defending social institutions: the family, religion, property, etc. It has created a vast machinery in order to assure its exercise and its sanction. The chief are: the law, the magistracy, the army, the legislature, executive powers, etc. So that the Anarchist idea, forced to reply to everything, was obliged to attack all social prejudices, to become thoroughly penetrated by all human knowledge, in order to demonstrate that its conceptions were in harmony with the physiological and psychological nature of man, and in harmony with the observance of natural laws, while our actual organization has been established in contravention of all logic and all good sense..... Thus, in combating authority, it has been necessary for the Anarchists to attack all the institutions which the Government defends, the necessity for which it tries to demonstrate in order to legitimate its own existence.”

You see what was “the development” of the “Anarchist Idea.” This Idea “denied” authority. In order to defend itself, authority appealed to the family, religion, property. Then the “Idea” found itself forced to attack institutions, which it had not, apparently, noticed before, and at the same time the “Idea,” in order to make the most of its “conceptions,” penetrated to the very depths of all human knowledge (it is an ill wind that does not blow some good!) All this is only the result of chance, of the unexpected turn given by “authority” to the discussion that had arisen between itself and the “Idea.”

It seems to us that however rich in human knowledge it may be now, the “Anarchist Idea” is not at all communistic; it keeps its knowledge to itself, and leaves the poor “companions” in complete ignorance. It is all very well for Kropotkine to sing the praises of the “Anarchist thinker”; he will never be able to prove that his friend Grave has been able to rise even a little above the feeblest metaphysics.

Kropotkine should read over again the Anarchist pamphlets of Elisée Reclus – a great “theorist” this – and then, quite seriously tell us if he finds anything else in them but appeals to “justice,” “liberty,” and other “metaphysical conceptions.”

Finally, Kropotkine himself is not so emancipated from metaphysics as he fancies he is. Far from it! Here, e.g., is what he said at the general meeting of the Federation of the Jura, on the 12th October, 1879, at Chaux-de-Fonds:–

“There was a time when they denied Anarchists even the right to existence. The General Council of the International treated us as factious, the press as dreamers; almost all treated us as fools; this time is past. The Anarchist party has proved its vitality; it has surmounted the obstacles of every kind that impeded its development; today it is accepted.” [By whom!] “To attain to this, it has been necessary, above all else, for the party to hold its own in the domain of theory, to establish its ideal of the society of the future, to prove that this ideal is the best; to do more than this – to prove that this ideal is not the product of the dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas. This work has been done,” etc. ...

The hunt after the best ideal of the society of the future, is not this the Utopian method “par excellence”? It is true that Kropotkine tries to prove “that this ideal is not the product of dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas.” But what Utopian has not tried to prove this equally with himself? Everything depends upon the value of the proofs, and here our amiable compatriot is infinitely weaker than the great Utopians whom he treats as metaphysicians, while he himself has not the least notion of the actual methods of modern social science. But before examining the value of these “proofs,” let us make the acquaintance of the “ideal” itself. What is Kropotkine’s conception of Anarchist society?

Pre-occupied with the reorganizing of the governmental machine, the revolutionist-politicans, the “Jacobins” (Kropotkine detests the Jacobins even more than our amiable Empress, Catherine II, detested them) allowed the people to die of hunger. The Anarchists will act differently. They will destroy the State, and will urge on the people to the expropriation of the rich. Once this expropriation accomplished, an “inventory” of the common wealth will be made, and the “distribution” of it organized. Everything will be done by the people themselves. “Just give the people elbow room, and in a week the business of the food supply will proceed with admirable regularity. Only one who has never seen the hard-working people at their labor, only one who has buried himself in documents, could doubt this. Speak of the organizing capacity of the Great Misunderstood, the People, to those who have.seen them at Paris on the days of the barricades” (which is certainly not the case of Kropotkine) “or in London at the time of the last great strike, when they had to feed half a million starving people, and they will tell you how superior the people is to all the hide-bound officials.”

The basis upon which the enjoyment in common of the food. supply is to be organized will be very fair, and not at all “Jacobin.” There is but one, and only one, which is consistent with sentiments of justice, and is really practical. The taking in heaps from what one possesses abundance of! Rationing out what must be measured, divided ! Out of 350 millions who inhabit Europe, 200 millions still follow this perfectly natural practice – which proves, among other things, that the Anarchist ideal “flows from the popular aspirations.”

It is the same with regard to housing and clothing. The people will organize everything according to the same rule. There will be an upheaval; that is certain. Only this upheaval must not become mere loss, it must be reduced to a minimum. And it is again – we cannot repeat it too often – by turning to those immediately interested and not to bureaucrats that the least amount of inconvenience will be inflicted upon everybody.”

Thus from the beginning of the revolution we shall have an “organization”; the whims of sovereign “individuals” will be kept within reasonable bounds by the wants of society, by the logic of the situation. And, nevertheless, we shall be in the midst of full-blown Anarchy; individual liberty will be safe and sound. This seems incredible, but it is true; there is anarchy, and there is organization, there are obligatory rules for everyone, and yet everyone does what he likes. You do not follow? ’Tis simple enough. This organization-it is not the “authoritarian” revolutionists who will have created it; – these rules, obligatory upon all, and yet anarchical, it is the People, the Great Misunderstood, who will have proclaimed them, and the People are very knowing as anyone who has seen, – what Kropatkine never had the opportunity of seeing – days of barricade riots, knows.”

But if the Great Misunderstood had the stupidity to create the “bureaux” so detested of Kropotkine? If, as it did in March, 1871, it gave itself a revolutionary Government? Then we shall say the people is mistaken, and shall try to bring it back to a better state of mind, and if need be we will throw a few bombs at the “hidebound officials.” We will call upon the People to organize, and will destroy all the organs it may provide itself with.

This then is the way in which we realize the excellent Anarchist ideal – in imagination. In the name of the liberty of individuals all action of the individuals is done away with, and in the name of the People we get rid of the whole class of revolutionists; the individuals are drowned in the mass. If you can only get used to this logical process, you meet with no more difficulties, and you can boast that you are neither “authoriatarian” nor “Utopian.” What could be easier, what more pleasant?

But in order to consume, it is necessary to produce. Kropotkine knows this so well that he reads the “authoritarian” Marx a lesson on the subject.

“The evil of the present organization is not in that the ’surplus value’ of production passes over to the capitalist – as Rodbertus and Marx had contended – thus narrowing down the Socialist conception, and the general ideas on the capitalist regime. Surplus value itself is only a consequence of more profound causes. The evil is that there can be any kind of ’surplus value,’ instead of a surplus not consumed by each generation; for, in order that there may be ’surplus value,’ men, women, and children must be obliged by hunger to sell their labor powers, for a trifling portion of what these powers produce, and, especially of what they are capable of producing.” [Poor Marx, who knew nothing of all these profound truths, although so confusedly expounded by the learned Prince!] ... “It does not, indeed, suffice to distribute in equal shares the profits realized in one industry, if, at the same time, one has to exploit thousands of other workers. The point is to produce with the smallest possible expenditure of human labor-power the greatest possible amount of products necessary for the well being of all.”

Ignorant Marxists that we are! We have never heard that a Socialist society pre-supposes a systematic organization of production. Since it is Kropotkine who reveals this to us, it is only reasonable that we should turn to him to know what this organization will be like. On this subject also he has some very interesting things to say.

“Imagine a Society comprising several million inhabitants engaged in agriculture, and a great variety of industries – Paris, for example, with the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Imagine that in this Society all children learn to work with their hand as well as with their brain. Admit, in fine, that all adults, with the exception of the women occupied with the education of children, undertake to work five hours a day from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and that they spend this time in any occupations they choose, in no matter what branch of human labor considered necessary. Such a Society could, in return, guarantee well-being to all its members, i.e., far greater comfort than that enjoyed by the bourgeoisie today. And every worker in this Society would moreover have at his disposal at least five hours a day, which he could devote to science, to art, and to those individual needs that do not come within the category of necessities, while later on, when the productive forces of man have augmented, everything may be introduced into this category that is still today looked upon as a luxury or unattainable.”

In Anarchist Society there will be no authority, but there will be the “Contract” (oh! immortal Monsieur Proudhon, here you are again; we see all still goes well with you!) by virtue of which the infinitely free individuals “agree” to work in such or such a “free commune.” The contract is justice, liberty, equality; it is Proudhon, Kropotkine, and all the Saints. But, at the same time, do not trifle with the contract ! It is a thing not so destitute of means to defend itself as would seem. Indeed, suppose the signatory of a contract freely made does not wish to fulfil his duty? He is driven forth from the free commune, and he runs the risk of dying of hunger – which is not a particularly gay outlook.

I suppose a group of a certain number of volunteers combining in some enterprise, to secure the success of which all rival each other in zeal, with the exception of one associate, who frequently absents himself from his post. Should they, on his account, dissolve the group, appoint a president who would inflict fines, or else, like the Academy, distribute attendance-counters ? It is evident that we shall do neither the one nor the other, but that one day the comrade who threatens to jeopardize the enterprise will be told: “My friend, we should have been glad to work with you, but as you are often absent from your post, or do your work negligently, we must part. Go and look for other comrades who will put up with your off-hand ways.” This is pretty strong at bottom; but note how appearances are saved, how very “Anarchist” is his language. Really, we should not be at all surprised if in the “Anarchist-Communist” society people were guillotined by persuasion, or, at any rate, by virtue of a freely-made contract.

But farther, this very Anarchist method of dealing with lazy “free individuals” is perfectly “natural,” and “is practiced everywhere today in all industries, in competition with every possible system of fines, stoppages from wages, espionage, etc.; the workman may go to his shop at the regular hour, but if he does his work badly, if he interferes with his comrades by his laziness or other faults, if they fall out, it is all over. He is obliged to leave the workshop.” Thus is the Anarchist “Ideal” in complete harmony with the “tendencies” of capitalist society.

For the rest, such strong measures as these will be extremely rare. Delivered from the yoke of the State and capitalist exploitation, individuals will of their own free motion set themselves to supply the wants of the great All of society. Everything will be done by means of “free arrangement”.

“Well, Citizens, let others preach industrial barracks, and the convent of ‘Authoritarian’ Communism, we declare that the tendency of societies is in the opposite direction. We see millions and millions of groups constituting themselves freely in order to satisfy all the varied wants of human beings, groups formed, some by districts, by streets, by houses; others holding out hands across the walls (!) of cities, of frontiers, of oceans. All made up of human beings freely seeking one another, and having done their work as producers, associating themselves, to consume, or to produce articles of luxury, or to turn science into a new direction. This is the tendency of the nineteenth century, and we are following it; we ask only to develop it freely, without let or hindrance on the part of governments. Liberty for the individual! ’Take some pebbles,’ said Fourier, ’put them into a box and shake them; they will arrange themselves into a mosaic such as you could never succeed in producing if you told off some one to arrange them harmoniously.’”

A wit has said that the profession of faith of the Anarchists reduces itself to two articles of a fantastic law: (1) There shall he nothing. (2) No one is charged with carrying out the above article. This is not correct. The Anarchists say:

(1) There shall be everything. (2) No one is held responsible for seeing that there is anything at all.

This is a very seductive “Ideal”, but its realization is unfortunately very improbable.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1895/anarch/ch07.htm

There is so much more at this piece. Plekhanov just knocks it outa the park.